Creature, Creature
by TheBatKid
Summary: In a world of murderers, a child's safety is less than certain. (Sequel to 'Loyalty.')
1. Late Callers

**Creature, Creature**

To a life wherein there was no good, no evil, no grey, Alaric resolved that there was no redemption.

Each week brought with it a new case. She watched, mesmerised not by their dedication but by their sacrifice, as Morgan and Reid left only to return with a piece of themselves missing. Their faces told the stories they wouldn't. Tales of mutilation, jealousy, aggression, lust; so horrible were their secrets that Alaric chose not to reveal them, no matter how much or how little she knew. Her role in their household was to provide to them a face to the countless thousands they rescued, a voice to give identity to all those made safer, and to be an unending drive for which they continued their work.

Derek had taken up the role of father with solemn enthusiasm, as was his nature to do so. Whereas he lost his own, he stood in placement of Alaric's, and told himself that no matter how far he went – if Rome itself collapsed and he was ordered to rebuild it – he would return for five minutes at the child's side. The agent stood as her protector, soldier, and disciplinary. He would do anything for her, save put her in danger at her request. Spencer too was dedicated to his place; he, as the main educator, nurturer, and occasional co-prankster/cohort, would spend hours a day filing tasks for when they were away, to be given to the teachers that came to take his place. He was up at night when Alaric's nightmares were too much, giving her comfort and a safe place in his arms, while Derek slept to take the 'morning watch.'

Together, they were a parenting force to be reckoned with.

But their jobs had them away for extended periods of time, and they feared for her well-being. To look into the eyes of the worst of humanity and know that at home Alaric was with a babysitter; it sometimes made Spencer call in the middle of the night, just to make sure she was safe and sound, and Derek kept on his person many pictures of her, some of them recent so as to issue them out should she go missing. Their habits of worry made an impression on Alaric.

So it was that she found herself in her library – the old study, sans the Tyra Banks computer that had been moved to Derek's room – waiting for a call that would inevitably come. Her babysitter wasn't the most observant of characters. It was nearing three a.m. and still she lingered, waiting for the television in the corner of the room to give some news on the team's recent murder case, or for the phone to jump to life.

When the phone rang, she paused for a few moments, reading to the end of the sentence, before picking it up and asking; "Hello?"

"Alaric? Sweetheart, is that you? Why are you still awake? It's three a.m. where you are."

"The phone woke me up," she lied.

"Don't use that excuse," came the amused reply, laced with a weariness she had come to expect; "Your voice isn't tired, no matter how much you strain it, and you're surprisingly coherent for a girl who was asleep."

"Maybe I'm just really good at waking up?"

There was a soft chuckle on the end of the receiver. She missed Spencer when he was at ease. After they returned from a case, providing it was a routine one, it would take him three or four days to collect himself and become normal, and by that time they had a maximum of three days before they were called out again.

"Maybe," he repeated.

"What's wrong?" she asked in concern; "Did something happen on the case?"

"You know I can't discuss that with you, sweetheart. It's still in its baby stages. We haven't even built a clear profile yet."

"Did you find a body?" she glanced at the news report. Children, about seven to eight years old, snatched from their homes and gone without a trace, only to be found in rivers or trees.

"I can't tell you," was his answer, and one she had grown familiar with as time went on; "I just wanted to check up on you, make sure you're alright."

"I'm always alright." She said.

"Well, I want to be the first to know if that changes."

A moment of silence passed. She wondered if he had fallen asleep, drained from the horrific sights he'd seen, but a cough told her he was still listening, waiting for something to be said.

"Where's Uncle Derek?"

"Busy with evidence. He asked me to call."

"That's a lie."

"No it's not."

"Yes it is. When you lie, you always brush your hair behind your ear. I heard you do it."

"No I don't."

"You just did it again!"

Another chuckle; "Prove it."

"I'm in a different state. When you come home I will."

There was a rustle of clothes as Spencer moved, and she imagined he sat up. Around him she could see a plethora of books and documents, files that boggled the mind and contained things too ghastly for common men. There would be a standard issue metal desk to his side and he himself would be in an uncomfortable, hard-backed chair, which he would refuse to move from so that he was more likely to stay awake.

"I miss you," he admitted in a quiet voice.

"I miss you, too."

"When we come home, Uncle Derek and I are going to take you out to your favourite restaurant – how's that?"

She chewed her lip; "You'll be recovering."

"Recovering?"

"When you come home. You and Uncle Derek recover from the case for a few days, and we have a couple of days at most until you go again."

"We won't this time."

"You _need_ to do it," she said; "Otherwise you go mad. Isn't that the worst thing an investigator can do? Become like the people you chase."

A heavy sigh sounded; "We won't become like them, Alaric. I promise you that."

"But you won't know if you do. It's hard to tell, you said. My parents were-"

"Your parents were sociopaths with a sense of entitlement. There's evidence to suggest both sides, but I believe some are born with a predisposition to being a sociopath," Another pause; "And Derek and I might be able to control our emotions, but it doesn't mean we don't have them. We miss you terribly when we're away. We love you and our friends."

Alaric said nothing. Instead, she sat in her comfortable leather seat, bundling herself against it as though in an attempt to make herself smaller. On the other end of the receiver she could hear Spencer breathing, and then a door opened and he mentioned something to someone else.

The phone was passed over.

"Hey, sweet pea," came a familiar voice, smooth and confident, which could belong to one person only; "Spencer tells me you've stayed up way past bedtime."

"I knew he would call," she replied, for she saw no reason to keep the truth from them; "I've been watching the news. Children's bodies, seven to eight years old, all snatched from their homes and-"

"Alaric, turn that off right now. Where is Mrs Murray? I've told her not to let you watch the news when we're on a case."

She sighed, snatching the remote from the desk to turn off the television.

"I took parental controls off my TV."

"Why did you do that, sweet pea? I'm going to have to take it away from you now." He said, but his voice was gentle, softly reprimanding rather than authoritative.

"When are you coming home?" she asked. There was a muffled conversation that lasted a few seconds, then an answer.

"We don't know, baby girl. Soon. Once we've got this cleared up, we'll be home. Did Uncle Spencer tell you…?"

"Yeah. My favourite restaurant."

"That's a promise. We've had a bunch of cases recently and we're coming up to some time off. It's time we paid you some attention."

Alaric nodded. She hoped that the sound would be enough to please him.

The rest of the phone call consisted of goodnights and farewells, for Derek wanted her to go straight to bed without delay. So well behaved was she that she did just as she was told, going to her room some moments after, wherein she settled down in her bed and shut her eyes against the dark shadows clinging around her furniture.

_Uncle Derek and Uncle Spencer need help_, she thought: _I can help. If they let me, I can help the team._

Alaric was a product of two murderers. In her mind, her blood prevented her redemption, and the purer blood of her brothers was spilt in vain. Intelligence had been her gift, but her curse was strong morals and a heightened sense of responsibility; all of which led her to dangerous tasks.

And being the child of two profilers had her in the sights of one particular revenge-killer.


	2. Flash Photography

The next day brought with it a swath of black clouds, rain, and distant thunder; a storm that wouldn't hit them, but lingered just on the horizon, like that of a looming spectre at a bedroom's darkest corners.

"I want to take Clooney out," Alaric said as she slumped down in her seat.

Spencer and Derek had returned two nights before, and as she'd predicted, both were recovering from the case. True to their word they had taken her out to her favourite restaurant – an Italian place some miles from their home, where the plates were generously stacked and the waiters were friendly, having long committed themselves to a family-run business. For a time, Alaric had almost believed that their recovery period had ended early.

Then came the quiet the following day.

"It's raining," Spencer pointed out from where he sat, perched on the edge of a dining room chair, a book in hand and elbows rested on the table; "You'll catch your death of cold."

"Uncle Derek, I want to take Clooney out," she repeated to the older agent, who sat just opposite of Reid. The dining room had slowly become the main hub of their family life; whereas some preferred to numb themselves in front of televisions, or watch with dumb curiosity the few people that walked by, Alaric and Spencer were almost always with novels at the table, and Derek liked to linger with his laptop, as though he thought if he weren't at their side they both might come to harm.

"Uncle Spencer's right, sweet pea. It's going to be cold out there, and if Clooney's that desperate for exercise he can run around the back garden."

Alaric frowned. She noticed not once had either man looked up. It reminded her of the tension between quarrelling lovers; or at least, of the descriptions she'd read of quarrelling lovers.

"That's not fair on Clooney."

"Clooney's a dog, Alaric."

"He's family," she frowned at his face, her eyes fixated as finally his rose to meet her; "Would you not let me exercise if it was raining?"

Such was the way her mind worked that there was no arguing with the girl's morality, and so Morgan and Reid glanced at each other. Both were reluctant to leave the warmth of their home. Outside, the sound of the storm was distance, but still audible. It left Spencer with prickled skin, so unnerved was he at the thought of leaving his cosy spot.

"I'm doing paperwork from the case," Morgan pointed out; "Spence, you're not up to anything important. Take them out."

"Some would argue expanding one's mind trumps mundane paperwork," he replied; "So, you should take them out."

It descended into a debate over whose activity was superior, reading versus work, and in that time Alaric slipped from her chair, sliding on her coat and leashing Clooney to stand by the door. Five full minutes passed before Spencer emerged from the dining room, his voice a mumble as he muttered failed arguments under his breath.

"Why is it you always want to go out at the most inconvenient times?" he asked her, donning his own coat.

"Clooney needs to be exercised. Dogs don't care how much rain there is."

"Well, I do, and I'd appreciate it if you'd at least button up your coat before we go outside," he fell to his knees to do what she had failed to, no anger on his face, but an unmistakable weariness that made her feel almost guilty.

Almost.

"There we go. Much better," he said as he reached the top; "Come on, then – let's go freeze to death outside, shall we?"

The world was a sleepy land, inhabited only by rain. The occasional car would whiz by and send up a tsunami of puddle water, which in turn crashed down on them, soaking them to the bone. Despite his protests, Spencer thought Quantico quite beautiful in the rain, and the storm just beyond the horizon illuminated everything in a white-hot glow, rather like a bulb growing too bright and short-circuiting. The buildings were made dark for the weather. Windows were shut and the curtains drawn, as though night had fallen. The few people they did pass – intrepid wanderers such as themselves, all with trench coats and holding umbrellas – gave them both glances, perhaps deciding if they were mad people, before wandering off into obscurity, never to be seen again.

It was Spencer's idea to go to the bookshop. Alaric followed willingly. She tied Clooney to the nearest post, gifting him with her coat so he wasn't too cold and the rain made a minimal impact, and guided him to sit in the sheltered area of the shop's door.

"Sweetheart, come here," Spencer tugged her towards a row of shelves heaving with books, his hair plastered to his forehead and his eyes as wide as a little boy's would be with his first remote-controlled car; "Look at these. Some of the titles I want you to read. Let me see…"

And so it was that Alaric was able to wander quite happily from Spencer, for the man was lost in his own world. She took time to glance across the books – some were interesting enough, but none struck her as something she wished to waste her time on, and instead she went back to Clooney to keep the dog company.

"What's wrong?" she asked as the door opened, the little bell ringing, and alerting no one. Clooney was growling with haunches raised, the Alsatian ready to attack, whether or not the leash stopped him from doing so.

She looked across the road. The street was swathed in slanted rain, made dark for the lack of sunlight, and she could just about make out an alleyway, so difficult was it to see beyond a few feet.

"Hello?" she called, moving forward, for she could hear no cars approaching or disturbing people disturbing puddles; "Is someone there? Please stop. You're scaring Clooney."

A flash went off. Her pupils shrank in the brief moment the light blinded her, differentiated by the 'click' of a shutter rather than the low rumbling of thunder.

Just as she was about to follow whoever had taken the picture – their footsteps were echoing down the alleyway, if only she could see them – a hand came out to grab hers, and a voice chastised.

"Alaric Morgan, what are you doing out here?" Spencer asked, his brow furrowed when she looked up; "Don't wander off from me. It's not safe."

"Who just took a picture of me?" she ignored his words; "Someone just took a picture. They were scaring Clooney."

Spencer's face whitened. For a moment Alaric thought it might be due to the cold, but his grip tightened on her hand and he was suddenly hurrying off with her, sparing only a few seconds to untie Clooney.

"Uncle Spencer!" she whined as he tugged at her hand; "Let go! I can keep up!"

"No. We need to see Uncle Derek. Right. Now."


	3. Judge, Jury, Executioner

Derek took the news with a face abject rage, perhaps to hide his worry.

"A picture? Someone took her picture?" he repeated, and when Spencer nodded went on; "Who was it? Did you get a look at them?"

He turned to the girl, who had one hand on Clooney, the other clasped around her thin knee. From where she sat – at one end of the dining room table, facing her two guardians who stood like looming sentinels, ready to pounce on whatever brought her harm or discomfort.

"No," she replied; "I only knew they were there because Clooney was barking."

The elder agent clasped at his bald head. Pacing, he looked as though he'd no idea what to do with his emotions, for they flashed across his face in a series of expressions and not one seemed to resemble the other.

Outside, the rain was hammering down. She'd been wrong about the storm not hitting. Lightning had come to replace the sun and thunder the sound of cars; birds' squawking was displaced by the discordant concert that was a tempest, and made all quieter sounds – talking, walking, the flicking of novel pages – difficult to hear. Every flash illuminated Derek's face, which only brought to notice how concerned he was.

"Why did you wander away from Uncle Spencer?" the words were accusatory. Such was the sudden bark that Alaric jumped, and it took all of Spencer's willpower not to go to her. Instead, he lingered at the edges of the dining room, leaning against a small cabinet whereon they placed the landline, and inside, a few bottles of scotch.

"I went to check on Clooney," she defended; "It's cold and wet; I went to make sure he was alright."

"Without someone with you? Do you realise just how dangerous that is, Alaric?" the way he spoke made it sound as though she had traversed America with nothing but a compass; "What if you'd been grabbed, huh? What would we have done then? For someone so smart, Alaric, you don't ever seem to think before you act!"

On the chair, she rose to her feet. Hands pressed against the wood of the table, the girl leant forward, giving a weight to her words that her words alone would never have; "Maybe if I was allowed in a normal school, I would know better!"

"This? Really? You're bringing this up now? We've discussed it-"

"You and Uncle Spencer discussed it – I wasn't there."

"Well, we both agreed that school so soon after the incident, and after so long of being home-schooled, was a bad idea."

Spencer glanced away from the girl's eyes. It was true that they factored in those things, but in fact it was his own experiences that had jaded his perception of school, and until they found a private one she could attend he wanted not for her to go. Alaric was his first chance at fatherhood; why would he put her through something he himself had despised so?

"The fact of the matter is, Alaric, you're not supposed to go wandering off by yourself. Anything could have happened to you. We don't know who's out on the streets, and we don't know what their intentions are."

Derek's eyes were filled with a resolute sort of anger. He took up the same position as Alaric, except with his feet on the floor and his back more rounded, and a flash of lightning to illume his face made him seem all the more intimidating.

"I'm going to have to punish you," he said, and above her indignant protest he went on; "Tonight, you go to bed at eight o'clock. Tomorrow you're coming down to work, and you'll be a good girl and sit quietly, providing we don't have a case. If we do, Mrs Murray will come and collect you, and she'll be under express instructions not to let you buy any new books, watch any of your British programmes, or go on the internet."

"Derek, that's a little harsh," Spencer said, but one glance from the elder made him quiet. It was not his job as nurturer to provide discipline. Such a heavy task fell on Derek's shoulders, and so it was that his queries could wait until after Alaric had gone to bed.

"This isn't fair," she said, her voice incredulous and her knuckles white; "How am I supposed to trust you with anything if you punish me for it?"

"It's not for the picture taking, Alaric; that, we'll follow up in our own time. This is for wandering off when you know you're not supposed to."

"I was with Clooney!"

"Clooney is a dog!" Derek's voice rose. His temper had flared at her continued argument, and as he slammed his hands down on the table to prove his point, he found himself regretting it when he saw her flinch. Something glinted in her eye. It wasn't a tear, for nothing followed down her cheek, but there was a heart-breaking moment in which he thought he saw fear there.

He leaned forward as though to touch her hand; "Ally-"

She flinched away from him. So violent was her move that it almost sent her toppling over the chair, and like that, she was on the floor, scuttling away from him like prey from a predator. After her followed Clooney. The dog's tail was down, but his movements were hurried and concise.

Spencer gave a great sigh; "She's upset."

"Upset? That was fear." He answered as he flopped down on a seat; "She was afraid of me."

"You're pretty terrifying when you shout. She hasn't seen you like that in a while – and never at her."

"She was arguing with me. I had to make sure what I said was clear."

Spencer shrugged; "Alaric's got the message now. She's being punished, and she knows it. There's no point in telling her anymore."

Moments passed. Outside still, the constant roll of thunder was their only companion, and upstairs they could hear Clooney's comforting whimpers.

"I'm going to check on her," Spencer said after a while; "Anything you want me to say?"

Derek shrugged; "It's her first time being punished. She'll realise it's for the best."


	4. Stand the Storm

Alaric was in her room, the light off and pressed against Clooney. Rainfall fell on deaf ears as she curled up tight to the dog, wondering for a long time just who that man was downstairs; he certainly wasn't the Derek she knew.

Clooney whimpered at her from time to time. She thought it might have been from discomfort, but whenever she tried to move he would nudge her back into place. For an animal she'd at first felt fearful, he was a sweet natured thing, with intentions that never strayed far from the good, other than perhaps raiding the pantries and counters of whatever food he could find.

She heard her door open. Snuggling further into the dog, Alaric waited for the inevitable question, her mind only concerned with whether or not it was Spencer or Derek who had come to see her. If Derek, she would remain silent. If Spencer, she would speak.

"Alaric, sweetheart?" she relaxed at Reid's voice; "Why's the light off? Come on; don't sit in the dark."

The room flooded with light. No longer did the lightning bleach the darkness; instead, it fell victim to the bulb above her head, shaded by a red, cuboid-like thing, and became banished to the very corners of her room, the inside of the closet she couldn't see.

When Spencer caught sight of her, his heart ached. Clooney was curled around Alaric as though he were a quiet guardian, his snout rested against the pillow as his belly provided her a place to lay. His paw was laid across her stomach – it was a gesture of faith, mutual trust, and he realised that if Derek had come up rather than himself, he would perhaps have been barked at.

"Alaric…"

"Leave me alone," she said. Her words were met by a further burying against the dog, who welcomed her without question.

He went to sit on her bedside. Again, Alaric moved away from him, just beyond his reach.

"Please, sweetheart, don't do this." He implored in a soft voice; "All we want is for you to be safe. We see people all the time who think they're doing enough for their children, and they end up losing them, sometimes just by one error of judgement. We don't want that happening to you."

"Uncle Derek _yelled_ at me." She reminded him. Her voice was choked, made thick with unshed tears; "He hit the table. I don't want to talk to him anymore."

Spencer dared to move closer. This time, she didn't shy away. With a gentle hand he stroked her leg, long, soothing patterns with which to calm her, and found her almost ease.

Still, her face remained buried in a mass of fur.

"He lost his temper, sweetheart. It's only because he loves you and wants you to be safe." Spencer smiled, and went on; "He's the typical alpha male. He struggles to show emotion, so when it does make an appearance, sometimes it can be very…forceful. He didn't mean to scare you, Ally."

"I don't want to talk to him anymore," she repeated.

Beyond, where the rain was slanted and the wind was howling, the streets quiet if not for the cacophony of sound above, there stood a single, hooded figure. In their hands they had a camera; one with a flash on it the size of which would have amazed Alaric, but she'd seen it before – not a few hours ago, in fact.

They took pictures of the house. Each flash of lightning provided a mask for the flash of the camera. Each 'click' of a shutter was sounded out by wind. The person's pleased hum was made silent for the constant roll of thunder. In such ideal conditions, there was but one thing to be mournful of; that the rain hammering down would distort the shot, and time would have to be spent editing them to perfection.

Many nights had the person spent, photographing the house and its surroundings. There was much to see, and even more to analyse. Such was their intent that they wanted not to be caught off-guard, so even Clooney's dog-house had been accounted for, even the new additions to the lot watched and factored in; Alaric and Spencer, one of which the person had their eye on.

Time had left them bitter and hateful. Both agents had wronged them, even if they had yet to see it. Whereas their family was torn apart and they were left with whatever shreds remained, so too would Derek witness his being taken from him, so would Spencer be forced to watch as Alaric – their sweet, precious, socially inept Alaric – was put in the line of fire. Had not every family been put through their trials? Was it not written in the stars that hurdles made them stronger, and if not, broke what was too weak to survive?

Spencer pulled the girl into his lap. Clooney almost barked, perhaps fearful that he meant her harm, but thought better of it and instead went back to lying. Alaric's face was pressed deeply into her Godfather's chest, like a small dormouse in search of comfort, little legs folded so she could fit more closely to him.

"There, there," he muttered into the crown of her head; "It's alright. You're safe here, no matter what. You know that, don't you?"

She nodded. So small was the action it was almost unnoticeable.

"Uncle Derek and I will never, ever let anything happen to you."

Another nod. She had heard it all said before. They were dedicated to her safety as much as they were her uniqueness, and oftentimes, both clashed. Once she'd heard them discussing a harness for her; apparently, her wandering off had become so much of a problem that they wanted to keep her on a leash.

"I'll talk to him about this punishment," he promised, placing a delicate kiss to her head; "It's too harsh. He's just scared right now – you know what it's like when you're scared. You don't think rationally."

Alaric looked up; "You promise?"

Her eyes were watery, filled with tears yet unshed, and her lips trembled as though holding in her sobs. It was all he could do to keep his voice even.

"Yes," he said; "I promise."

Another flash went off. If it were quieter, they could just have heard the 'click' that followed, and the footsteps hurrying away.


	5. Farewell to Peace

Breakfast the next morning was a quiet affair.

Derek tried to initiate conversation, but Alaric was silent. Spencer provided enough cues for her to speak, and still she acted on none of them, instead preferring to drink her orange juice and pick at her bacon, wearing an expression of muted despondency.

The storm outside had grown quiet as the night drew on. By morning, it remained only as cloud, still so large and dark that no sun could penetrate, nor sky could it break apart. The puddles it left behind made the garden an unsafe place to be; it meant that Alaric had to busy herself with projects, and the reading requirements Spencer had set that week.

Her rush out of the dining room left her carers with a heavy emptiness in their stomachs. That she was so eager to leave them hurt, rather like a knife twisting in their guts, but it was a lonely agony that was felt in private. Derek's downhearted face lingered as he cleared away the plates and cutlery, his movements slow and deliberate, whereas Spencer hurried off into the living room, as if he were enthused to watch something on daytime television.

Silence prevailed until late that afternoon, when Derek's phone rang. In the background he could hear the sound of the Jeremy Kyle show – Alaric's favourite, so as to remind herself the bad sides of Britain as much as the good – and when he pressed the mobile to his ear, he heard it quiet, as if Spencer were straining to hear what was said.

"Morgan," came Hotchner's voice, strong and business-like; "We need you and Reid in. We've got a case."

"So soon after the last one?"

"UNSUBs don't consider vacation time, Derek. We'll see you here in an hour."

The line went dead. Even if Hotch had stayed on, the agent hadn't much else to say to him. His job was to do as he was told and be one part of a team specialised in behavioural studies; to argue was to refute his job description.

Spencer was hesitant to leave, as was he always. They dialled for Mrs Murray, a woman they could rely on for quick response, for her marriage had been annulled by death and her children were fully grown, with their own lives to lead and families to tend to.

"Alaric, sweet pea?" Morgan cried up the stairs. There was no answer. Reid did it instead, and his voice received a short, curt reply along the lines of 'Yes?'

"We have to go into work. It's an emergency."

A pause; "Isn't it always an emergency?"

"Well, yes," he called; "But we're going to be off in a minute, when Mrs Murray gets here. Come downstairs and we'll say goodbye."

There was another, longer pause, in which Spencer doubted she would show her face. That Alaric had given them so frosty a reception hinted at a sulk. But, sure enough, the girl appeared at the top of the staircase, hands clasped around what looked to be her Chinese Puzzle Box, and descended them to give both agents the customary kiss and cuddle.

"How long are you gone for?" she asked. The question was one they had come to expect, but each time, their answer was merely guesswork.

"I'd say about a week, if we're going by averages," Spencer told her.

"No more than a week, Ally. We'll be back before you know it." Derek reassured.

She looked up at them. In her eyes there was a sort of speculation, a deep thought of something neither knew, and then she nodded, apparently unconcerned with whether or not it was the truth.

"I figured out the box," she told Spencer as she passed it to him; "You have to find me a new challenge now."

He gave her his pleased smile, full of pride and affection, teetering on love; "Of course. I'll pick you one up when we get where we're going. How about a different kind of challenge before you get it?"

"What?"

"We don't get told by Mrs Murray that you bypassed the rules by 'technicalities.' Deal?"

She snorted; "You shouldn't make rules that have loopholes. That's how every evil villain loses when they have someone's powers on contract."

"Even so," Derek ruffled her hair, to which she furrowed her brow and tried to put it right; "be good. Behave, and don't try to wind Mrs Murray up again."

"But-"

"I know it's easy, but try not to."

She gave a sullen nod. It would mean she lost a great deal of entertainment, for Mrs Murray was not a woman that shouted in anger, but rather stamped her foot like a mad bull; however, she wasn't the sort to go against Derek's wishes, not when it was something she could live without doing.

"We're going to miss you, sweetheart," Spencer told her as he lifted her for a hug; "Don't be angry with us when we come back, okay?"

There was a nod.

"And, if you're good, maybe we'll buy you something, too."

"You're getting me a Puzzle Box."

"Something else. Something much better than a Puzzle Box."

"Can I get a Bunsen Burner?" she asked, her eyes glinting; "I want to start doing real experiments."

Derek could not shake his head hard enough; "No, no, no, and no. We're not getting a Bunsen Burner. You can do experiments with literature, because that won't burn down the house. Agreed?"

Alaric had no time to protest. Mrs Murray knocked at the door and entered with her key, giving to them a bright smile, her greying hair in a tight bun and her crows' feet on show, dentures evident in the fact that her teeth were brilliantly white, but her gums left something to be desired. Her eyes – a pale blue in colour, rather like her dress – held the wisdom of the ages, and all the motherly love that could be afforded to a young charge.

"Hello, Alaric," she greeted, her voice warm; "Mr Morgan, Mr Reid. How are you?"

They had a polite discussion, and then both men set out. Mrs Murray was strong enough to hold Alaric, for the girl was still very small and light, and as both waved them off, no one noticed the man lurking in the street.

He had a camera in his hand. His hood was up, his eyes observant, as slowly he watched the car pull away, and realised that the BAU team was on yet another enquiry.

_Perfect._


	6. Attacked

"Alaric?"

The girl heard her name called up the stairs. Mrs Murray never used nicknames; those were reserved for Derek and Spencer, and when they were gone, she seldom heard the monikers.

"Yes?" was her reply, stroking down Clooney's soft belly as she sat on her study floor, eyes scanning through a large, hard-backed tome. The words imprinted on her mind almost without her knowledge. That she could split herself into two separate consciousness – her sub and her dominant – and shared that trait with all other humans…

"Come downstairs. Lunch is ready!"

Mrs Murray was a fine cook. It was one of the reasons Spencer had been partial to her when searching for a babysitter. As Alaric descended the stairs, her dog following behind, she saw first the grand array of meats and breads, the beautiful silverware polished to perfect, and the curtains open the reveal the charcoal black skies above a dreary, greyish garden.

Then she saw Clooney's bowl, which was stuffed by all manner of sausages and bacon. The dog hurried from behind her and went straight to it, leaving in his wake an amused Alaric to wonder if, when the going got tough, Clooney would see her as no more than a lamb chop.

"Thank you, Mrs Murray," she said in a drone as she climbed up to eat. The food was always delicious; one of the things that Spencer had a problem with was Murray's insistence of saying Grace before meals, which she had dropped once they offered her a good enough price, and Alaric was thankful she wouldn't have to suffer the tedium three times a day.

As both creatures ate, Murray looked on. Her eyes were soft when they fell upon Alaric, still so small she could have been mistaken for an eight year old, and so clever that on the phone, she wondered if she was being hired to babysit a much older girl.

There was a knock at the door. Alaric looked up and made as though to answer it, but Murray shook her head and directed her back to her seat.

"I'll get it," she assured; "You and Clooney keep eating. It's probably the mailman."

"The postman comes at eleven o'clock every morning," the child called, but her words fell on deaf ears. Murray had already left the room to hurry to the door.

Beside her, Clooney started growling.

Alaric looked down, dropping her fork on her plate; "What's wrong, Clooney? What do you smell?"

He lowered himself down to the ground, haunches raised and ears back, while his sharp canines were revealed, his lip having retracted somewhat up his snout. There were few times Alaric ever saw him like it. Two occasions sprang to mind. Once, when Derek had taken food from him, and another time – when an 'intruder' had come into their home.

The girl abandoned her food to slip beside him. Her hands stroked down his stiff spine, her words soothing, when there was a loud 'thump' from the hallway, followed by a crash.

Clooney erupted into furious barking.

It was then that Alaric knew she was in danger.

"Come on!" she cried out, calm, steady footsteps sounding from the hallway; "Run, Clooney!"

The dog was quick on her heels as she hurried up the stairs. She heard behind her the constant tramp of four paws, followed closely by that of a person running, and as she exploded into the upstairs hallway her mind worked on pure survival instincts.

Clooney stayed by her side, until they reached the master bedroom. It adjoined to another bedroom that used to be an ensuite bathroom, but Derek had decided it was best for Spencer to live with them, so as to have better access to Alaric during their periods at home.

"Clooney, come on!" she begged, yet the dog made no move towards her. Instead, he turned, canines bared as a contorted shadow appeared across the wall, and was gone in a moment, followed by barking and a man's scream.

Without him, Alaric slammed the door.

There was a whimper, and all fell silent outside. Clooney was either injured or dead. Footsteps approached the bedroom at a rapid pace; Alaric barely had time to secrete herself under the bed before the door swung open, free of locks for Spencer's fire safety instructions.

"Alaric?" came a haunting, slow voice, as the girl watched black-booted feet walk across the room; "Alaric? Where are you, Ms Morgan? Ms Reid?"

Her little whimpers were silent. In one of the boxes under Derek's bed, she found a blade sharp enough to cause at least a little damage. As the man's feet approached the bed, she readied it.

The intruder fell to his knees. In a mocking tone, he growled; "Are you hiding from me, Alaric?"

As two pairs of blue eyes appeared, Alaric thrust the blade forward. She'd no idea where it hit, for she was on her feet and scrambling out into the hallway not seconds later, but by the howl of pain that erupted behind her, it was in a good place.

"Come here, you little bitch!"

That he swore in a house that permitted no swearing was to her crime enough, but Alaric had barely registered the word when two hands grabbed her legs and swung her around. She was thrown down the hallway and crashed into the closed study door, feeling a cut open above her eye.

Scrambling, as her legs were hurting and her entire torso ached, the girl tried to crawl away. She'd not looked directly at her assailant, for he terrified her too much. Still she could not bring herself to do it, even when his hands grabbed her and she was hauled over his shoulder, catching in the periphery of her vision Clooney, his limp body surrounded by a shattered ornament.

"There we go," the man chuckled and patted her back; "That wasn't too difficult, was it? Did you really need to fight so hard, Alaric?"

"Let me go!" she said, but her head was hurting so much that her consciousness began to fade; "Let go…!"

"We've got some big plans for you, little girl. You and all the rest."

As Alaric's eyes began to slide shut, she heard the study telephone ring, and all went black…

"They're not answering," Spencer said to Derek, both of them seated next to each other on the plane; "What's going on?"

Morgan checked his watch; "It's lunchtime. She's probably eating."

"She always answers the phone, even when she's eating. Something's not right."

There was a great sigh, and Derek turned to him.

"Wait until we're on the ground," he said; "Try and call her then. If she doesn't pick up, I'll speak to JJ about sending Will to check on her. Alright?"

Despite his reservations, Spencer nodded.

But in the pit of his stomach and the depths of his heart, he knew something was seriously wrong.


	7. Hearts so Weary

It was when they reached the end of their day that Spencer made JJ call Will.

His late phone call to Alaric had gone to the answering machine, and it was unlike her to even miss one, let alone two. That Mrs Murray hadn't even picked up was just another cause for concern. As he leaned back in his spinning chair, JJ on the desk, he waited in anxious silence for her to say hello, or command Will to take Henry and check on his Alaric.

"That's weird," she said after a long while. Her brow furrowed, pulling the phone away from her so she could peer at it, as though her gaze would fix what was wrong.

"What's weird?" Derek asked as he passed them. His hands were full of documents, not all of them to do with the case, and he raised an eyebrow at them, knowing that Spencer's worrying had led to a premature phone call.

"Will's not picking up," she answered; "It just went to his voicemail. He nearly always picks up, unless he's with his mother."

"Is he with his mother?"

"No. She's vacationing in Italy."

JJ called again, but it yielded the same results. Strapped for choice, Spencer then went to Hotch in the hopes his babysitter would be willing to go, but when he called his home phone there was again no answer.

"Something's happened," he began to panic to Derek, who put a steadying hand on his shoulder; "Something's happened and Alaric's been hurt, or worse. Why isn't anyone picking up? Where have they all gone?!"

"Reid, calm down. You're jumping to the worst case scenario."

Hotch glanced at them both – a look that conveyed calm, but also unease, almost as if he too had grown concerned.

"It's strange that all three haven't answered their phones," he said, but his words invited no opportunity for debate, spectacle, or anything similar; "We'll call for Garcia later and ask her to pay a visit. Other than that, it's best not to get worked up about it. Chances are that something perfectly circumstantial happened and they're all fine, but can't pick up."

Spencer snorted at the unlikelihood of that scenario. The chances of that were slim, despite what Hotch said, but he agreed nonetheless, wanting for nothing more than to get on a plane and go to his Alaric.

Around them stood a small-town police station. As such, it was decorated in a quaint way. There were souvenirs from a local gift shop on the desks, depictions of beavers with oversized tails, teeth bigger than their heads and happy smiles. The desks themselves were of local wood, polished, clean for the fact that very little crime passed through and, if it did, it was petty at best. The main bullpen was a levelled floor wherein the officers would speak to one another over cups of coffee or snacks; there was an adjoining office with a large glass window that belonged to their chief, but the blinds were often drawn and it was minimalistic in design, with but a desk, three chairs, one computer and a second window that overlooked the town.

The chief, as they had heard, seldom interacted with his force, and instead of working them more often than not sent them on their merry way with whatever assignments he could conjure up. Their complaints were handled by his secretary, who seemed a plucky young man with a taste of adventure – a man who rarely showed up to work for more than two hours at a time.

That such a ramshackle force had all decided to call them in seemed to Spencer an oddity. They were welcomed with open arms, and it was clear on their faces that murder – a crime read about, not experienced – had come to haunt their sleepy streets.

But both Reid and Morgan had little patience for the quaintness of it all, when they had no contact with their 'daughter.' Calls still went unanswered, voicemails left in their wake. Spencer had hoped that Alaric would get back to them on the number he'd left, but there had been no word from her. Slowly, his mind had begun to wander from the case and lingered home, where he hoped Alaric was safe and sound.

"We have to call the police," he said to Derek as they clambered in their cars. The air was cold, so much so that the windshields had frosted over and the team were left stranded for a few moments as the heating warmed them up.

"She's fine, Reid," Morgan told him, though his voice held little confidence to it and his thoughts seemed distracted; "When we get a call back, we'll berate Mrs Murray for not answering sooner, alright? Alaric's fine."

He leaned back in his seat with a frustrated sigh; "If it was only her not picking up, I'd be a little calmer. But it's not just her, is it, Derek? It's Will _and_ Jessica. They're both not answering their phones, and it just seems a little too much of a coincidence for me."

There was a moment of quiet. Then, in a tiny, unsure voice, Spencer asked:

"Do you not have a bad feeling too?"

Derek considered it for a moment. There had been what felt like a heavy lump in his stomach, but he had attributed it to something he ate at the station. He was loath to admit that he'd felt something was wrong before the jet had touched down.

"I do," he confessed, but it was at length, more speculative than Reid, who he had come to realise was more vulnerable to emotion than first thought; "I'm just riding this out for the while. Whatever's happened, Alaric isn't hurt. She's fine. When we get Garcia to go check on her, we'll have our answers. Now stop worrying, alright?"

Spencer gave a reluctant nod. Outside, he could see snow that went up to his knee, the roads shovelled and made clear with a combined annual effort, and he almost felt himself at peace. Snow was so pretty in the dark. But even the prettiest things could be dangerous, he remembered; something he had learnt long before he knew of human kindness.

Alaric's eyes opened to sheer darkness at first. Then, she saw a glimmer of light ahead, like a Sea Angler's antennae in the deepest waters.

With caution, she called out.

"Uncle Derek? Uncle Spencer?"

There was no answer.

"Aunt Penelope?"

Still, silence.

"I don't like this," she realised her voice echoed ever so slightly, as though around her there was a great mausoleum; "I'm scared. I want to go home."

A great voice boomed above her; a tannoy system, she deduced, but with the great force of a thousand gods, herself being but a small, humble servant.

"You're not going home, Alaric." It said, so loud it was genderless; "This is where you belong now. You and all the others."

"Others?"

"Go back to sleep, Alaric. You woke up too soon. You'll see them when you wake up."

And the will in her to protest was sapped away as around her, several hisses sounded. A gas so thick it was like soup entombed her body, making her weary, and soon she had fallen to her knees, her eyes shutting to the sound of a lullaby; a lullaby Spencer had told her a few weeks before.


	8. Alert

He worried through dinner. He worried as he went to his room to change. He worried when he met Hotch and Derek in the lobby, themselves waiting for JJ, and worried as they stood there.

Spencer was a worrier when it came to Alaric. It was what caused him to call her at ridiculous times at night. The temperament had been born from experience; he'd watched some of his most loved people slip away from him, and he would be damned if he let his 'daughter' be hurt in the same way they had.

"Can we just call her now?" he asked after a time. The lobby they stood in was small, as no real tourism passed through the town and they relied heavily on lumber sales. Despite the size it was modernised to some extent, with large bay windows drawn by silk red curtains, a counter that acted as the front desk which ran in a queer L shape, and comfortable sofas that were red in colour, themselves made complete with mock-wood tables that sat in every corner, ready with little chocolates to give the guests some incentive to stay. The fireplace was older, and the mirror above it very old, if the gold-painted frame and small chips were anything to go by.

"Wait until JJ's here," Derek advised, his voice calm, but his closest friends could tell there was an element of unease nestled deep within; "If she's not managed to get a hold of Will, then we'll call Garcia."

"But-"

"Reid," the man looked up to see two eyes looking at him, assertive, but not stern; "Wait for JJ."

His gaze held no room for debate. Not without a look of displeasure, Reid was silent.

When the woman finally appeared, she revealed that she hadn't been able to contact Will, and it worried her. With no other choice, Hotchner called Garcia.

The phone rang. And rang. And rang. It rang for so long that Spencer felt the beginnings of a panic attack, for if Garcia was unavailable or otherwise unable to speak, it felt as if they had lost all connection with their loved ones.

Just as Hotch was about to give up, there was a voice at the other end of the line.

"Sorry, sorry," Garcia said, so fast that it was hard to distinguish words; "Guys, I'm so sorry, I've had police here and they're asking to see you and -"

When Hotch interrupted her, Spencer and Derek threw each other twinned looks of concern. Police arriving at the BAU without their knowledge was almost unheard of.

"Garcia, calm down. What's wrong? Why are there police in the building?" The director said. There was a moment's pause as, on the other end, they could hear deep, heavy breaths.

"Sir, something's happened," JJ leaned forward to listen better. Doing so brushed her up against Reid, who she noticed was trembling.

"What's happened?"

"You might want to sit down for this."

"Penelope, what's happened?" Derek asked, but he was more emphatic, as though in suspense he had lost the calm air he'd tried so desperately to cultivate.

There was another pause, and then; "Guys…someone's taken your families."

In the moment that followed, it seemed all agents had been struck dumb. They glanced at each other, perhaps in the hopes that one would say something, or that the news would register in their heads, but after a time like this Spencer simply asked:

"What?"

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," Garcia began babbling, her voice choked with strained emotion, and Derek could imagine her with her pretty lipstick and styled hair looking rather at a loss; "Someone called them – your babysitter, Mrs Murray – and she said she'd been attacked by a man, knocked out. When she woke up, she found Clooney unconscious upstairs and…and…"

"And what?" Morgan asked; "Where was Alaric, Penelope? Is she alright? Where did they find her?"

"Derek, they didn't. She's gone."

Quiet. In it, Garcia went on.

"And then someone called in about what they thought was a robbery at Hotch's house, and when they went in the entire place was trashed. Jessica and Jack were nowhere to be seen."

The resolve Hotch had kept broke. His face softened, his eyes made heavier with the news, and his words were quiet, strained little things when he muttered 'no…'

"They must've linked them both together because they went to check on JJ's, and both Will and Henry are gone too." The horror of telling them what had happened seemed to flood out of Garcia, but still there was the aftermath of it, and she waited in anxious silence for what they would say.

It was Spencer who panicked first. He spoke so fast that words were hard to understand, though Derek held it in good faith that he was making plans, arranging things in his head and remembering every detail of every case they had ever looked at, wherein the killer was recently released from imprisonment. It felt too personal for it to be anything else but a piqued serial murderer. And if they had their families with them, so help them God, Derek vowed he would make every single one pay for the slightest scratch.

"We have to go back," Reid said; "We have to go back and find them. We have to find Alaric!"

"Just stay calm-"

"He's right," Hotchner said; "We have to go back. This feels like a personal operation, and if it is I want us to be at the forefront of the investigation."

"They've got my son and my husband. If we've caught these people once, we'll do it again." JJ nodded in determination, but her eyes betrayed the glimmers of fear she would tell no one of. They dealt with murderers; not petty thugs or thieves. That they would kidnap their families at least told her that they were safe, for now, but how long until they began to find body parts in the post?

Derek and Spencer were quick to agree. As Hotchner called in an emergency team – Strauss was more than accommodating, given the circumstances - the jet was ordered to fly them out in half an hour, which was a wait Reid thought far too long. Were that he was born with wings, he would have flown to Quantico without delay.

Alaric awoke once more in a room, but it was lighter now, with blue walls rather than a monotonous, metallic grey. She sat upright against the wall; evidently she had been moved there, for around her she noticed more people, two of which were young boys, one more being a man, and another being a woman.

They slept as though they were in their beds at home. Knocked out, like her. Their faces portrayed a sort of apprehension, though, and somewhere deep inside of her Alaric knew these people were in danger.

Which meant she was in danger, too.

She spied a camera in the corner of the room. It's blinking red light caught her attention first. With a strong voice, passed down to her through her short months of being with Derek, she called out:

"I would've been more scared if you kept me in that room!"


	9. Waking Nightmare

Alaric spent her time watching over the sleepers, under pain of insanity.

She saw their faces twitch in slumber, and felt they might know she was there. That two were much younger than her put things in perspective. The variation of ages and gender meant that the kidnappers had something else in mind than what her guardians spent most of their time dealing with, which though brought her little comfort, set a warm glow in her chest for the fact she recognised it. Spencer would be proud.

Her guardians were on the plane, and beside themselves. It moved too slowly for their liking. While in the corner JJ kept some semblance of composure – she was tearful, but such tears stayed in her eyes and away from her cheeks – and Hotch lingered at the table, making call after call for information, the pair were silent, sitting next to each other with Spencer's eyes wet and Derek's mouth set in a hard line. Their grief was inward, and went deeper than words could describe.

"Alaric?"

The girl looked up. Will had awoken, perhaps while she was watching over the boys, and he looked at her as though he knew her only from a dream. She neither moved nor breathed, for she had no idea how he would react to their imprisonment and wanted not to provoke him.

"What…where are we?"

That question she could answer, if only in part; "We've been kidnapped."

The bluntness of her reply must have shaken him from his dreamy state. Will sat bolt upright, looking frantically for his son, and when his eyes chanced across him Alaric noticed no ease in his tension.

Spencer reached out to drink some water, but only out of habit. He had made a vow to himself as a boy that dehydration would never plague him. He spent long drinking that it had become a sort of reflex action, and even when it seemed the world had collapsed, or he'd lost something most precious to him, water was a friend that was always there in some form or other.

"Forensics are looking for evidence," Hotch informed them, and it amazed Reid that his voice was so even; "If they find anything, they're going to let us know."

"Who would've targeted us, specifically?" Derek asked. It was a question on all their minds. Yet even after much brooding and quiet, none seemed to have an answer for him; JJ even looked away as though in defeat.

"I don't know. But when we find out, they're going away for a long time."

After Will awoke Jessica. She was confused, disorientated, with a large bruise blossoming on her forehead from where she had been struck unconscious. As Alaric had never met her before, Will quickly introduced them – the most inappropriate of gestures at such a time – and went on to describe what little they knew.

"We've been kidnapped."

The world outside was a continuous blur of grey clouds. What little turbulence there was became lost to the agents' melancholy. Spencer, ever diligent, wondered to himself if in his numbed state, he would even realise the plane going into a nose-dive.

"Reid," it was the third time Hotchner said it that he looked up; "Did Alaric mention anything strange happening recently? Had she mentioned someone watching her, or at least that she felt as though she was being watched?"

A sudden memory struck him. Before it seemed to have no relevance, and so Spencer had stupidly ignored it. With clarity both Derek and Reid looked at each other, speaking as if with one voice:

"Someone took her picture!"

Hotchner raised an eyebrow; "What?"

Spencer babbled as quickly as he could, perhaps afraid that for the first time in his life, memory would fail him; "Two days ago I took her out, and she wandered away from me. When I found her she said someone had taken her picture."

JJ, her emotions excited by the conversation, hurried over to them with wide, urgent eyes. That something so sinister had happened and they hadn't been informed almost felt like an affront to their friendship. And yet, when she looked into the genius's eyes, so wide with fear and upset, she felt no will in her heart to rebuke him.

"Reid, calm down," Hotchner said.

When it was clear he could do no such thing, Derek filled in; "She came home and mentioned it, too. Said she was looking at Clooney and something was scaring him. Because Spencer wasn't with her, she went to check it alone. God, they could have got her then!"

"No, they wanted all of our people or none at all," JJ said; "They must have been stalking us. Waited until we were all out of the house and then came in for our people. How could we not have noticed someone following us around all the time?"

"Stalkers know how to make themselves hidden," Hotch pointed out.

"We catch these guys for a living," Derek contradicted.

"But we're not impervious to being targeted ourselves, as we all well know," Hotch sighed; "This is getting us nowhere. We have five missing people. My son, Jessica, Will, Henry, and Alaric. Why just them, and no one else?"

"We'd notice their absence more and miss them to a greater extent than family we don't live with," Spencer theorised; "We can't help but launch ourselves into this investigation because it involves us all the more."

"Their continued presence in our lives means we're hurt more when they're gone. This is a personal attack."

Spencer rolled his shoulders. If he spoke in technical terms, he could imagine it was another person. He could think that Alaric was at home where she belonged, either reading or sleeping, curled up against Clooney either way. Derek had discovered that the dog would live; he had put up a tough fight, and where the kidnapper thought he had struck the killing blow, in truth he had just knocked him out.

"We need to compose a list of serial killers we jailed who've recently been released."

"Most likely they're working in a team."

"Then we need to find them all."


	10. For the Wicked

Alaric's face was turned upwards, her head tilted towards the camera and its blinking red light. She had stared at it for what seemed like hours, and yet it made no move or noise, as though in stasis it could see all that it needed to.

Behind her, the adults were talking. Their voices were hushed, whispers really, and her indignity at being left out was forgotten in her silent vigil, for how could she expect Will and Jessica to see her as capable? Even her carers had trouble with it, and they knew her more than any living person did.

"Alaric," she turned to her name, called out by Will; "Come away from there. We don't know if it's safe."

She sighed; "It's a camera. What, is it going to be filled with explosives? They're watching us through it."

"I don't want you near it. Or the boys. When they wake up, I don't want them to go over to you and get caught on that thing, got it?"

Alaric paused for a moment. She waited, almost for a reaction, as her eyes stared up at the blinking light, so rhythmic it was nearly enraging, before she turned on her heel and walked towards them.

"The position's meant to catch us all, wherever we sit. And this isn't the biggest of rooms. Whoever's done this," she sat beside them, where she could hear and be a part of their conversation as an equal member, despite her age; "they want to keep their eye on us."

Spencer had spent hours with the police. What little they knew, so he did too. It gave him no comfort that no prints had been lifted, no neighbours aware, and owing to the bad weather no passers-by had seen anything strange. As he let himself flop down into one of the station's chairs, there was a great dark cloud looming over his head, so thick as to be tangible, with such a presence on his mood that it was a wonder no one else could see it.

"They don't know anything," he mumbled to Derek when the man approached him; "They don't know anything and Alaric could be anywhere by now. We don't even know if they're holding her. All we know is that they stalked us and want to see us suffer."

He took the chair beside him. The station, much more stylish than the one they had been in before, with sleek desks and modern furnishings, police officers wearing serious faces and the bullpen lowered, underneath a large glass window that led to the chief's office. It was completed with strong, modern colours, and not a whimsical ornament was in sight, neither beside photos of loved ones or hidden behind the various computer screens.

"We'll find her, and the others," he reassured, though Spencer could hear the glimmer of doubt in his voice, so minute someone else may have missed it; "She's safe. I can feel it."

"She's alive, you mean. Safe is a completely different issue."

She listened for a while. The adults were discussing nothing important. They were acquainted, that much was obvious, and she felt almost like an outsider beside them. It was that which drove her off, secreting herself in the corner furthest from them.

Will and Jessica glanced at her, but made no move towards the girl. Her silence was all they needed. In the clear air they could think, if there was thinking to be done, and in it they could stop fooling themselves that their situation was anything less than dire, watching over the two boys who had yet to realise the danger they were in.

"Alaric Morgan."

A great voice boomed through the room. She looked up, eyes fearful, but in the split second they were a trace of calm returned, and she simply replied:

"Yes?"

"You're first."

Derek had his demons, and in light them he felt as though he were redeeming himself through Alaric. The girl was to be his masterpiece; his way of giving back to the world. As he had watched his father die, his retaliation would be to raise someone with his strong sense of justice, and his morals. That he could give his 'daughter' the upbringing he had never received seemed to him the perfect way of eradicating any evil he'd done himself.

But she was gone. Taken from the one place he would have considered safe – their home, under the watchful eyes of a babysitter hand-selected by Spencer. He'd always been careful to tell her not to talk to strangers, not even to cross the road without them, and now it was so that the one thing he hadn't warned her about, a home invasion, had been the only thing to have happened.

"She's got to be alright," he resolved.

"She is. But for how long?" Spencer asked.

"They won't get rid of the hostages that quickly. They're too valuable to them, because they're valuable to us."

"Yes," the genius replied; "But we still have no idea what they're doing to them, do we?"

Alaric was pulled from the room moments after her name was spoken. She made her peace with the end, though the prospect frightened her. One part of her mind was excited; it was a chance, however slim, that she might be with her brothers again, and from there she could watch over the guardians who had done so much to help her.

But instead, she was led to that cavernous room that she had first woken up in. Two men grabbed her arms, both wearing white masks void of expression, and pushed her to the ground, where she noticed another camera being faced towards her; this one being for recording use and not spying.

"Read this," one of the men barked.

"No."

Her head snapped to one side, either from a slap or a punch; "Read this, or we'll kill you."

So it was that Alaric read out her own ransom; the imprisonment of one Spencer Reid, Derek Morgan, Aaron Hotchner, and Jennifer Jareau.


	11. Theories

The boys had awoken when Alaric returned. Teary-eyed and scared, they lingered by the carers for the illusion of safety, and even when they caught the masked faces of their captors, neither said a word. As the girl was thrown back inside and the door locked behind her, she said nothing, instead choosing to curl up in a ball in the furthest corner and think to herself.

"These are precise, directed at us and meant to cause panic," Hotchner was telling the chief investigating officer, who had no choice but to accept their presence. That they were privy to all details provided little comfort, for there was very few to point them in the right direction, and fewer still that he thought might help them in their investigation.

"We're working on that lead," he said, and then added; "but we're also working on alternate theories."

Derek was at his side, sitting on one of the swivel chairs with his eyes locked on to the chief, who he thought seemed far too relaxed.

"Alternate leads? And what alternate leads are there?" JJ asked from where she was, to the side near the window, where she could watch the officers go about their business, laugh and joke to one another as though the world had not stopped spinning, the sky hadn't fallen in.

"That these are random kidnappings that just so happen to involve the families of several co-workers."

"That's ridiculous. Coincidences are when you and someone you've just met went to the same concert three years ago; not when a team of people kidnap your children!" Spencer barked. So furious was he at the lead that he wished it were tangible, just so he had something he could truly tear apart.

"Be that as it may, it's a legitimate theory and we're following it through."

Derek shook his head; "How much evidence have you gathered so far?"

The chief was a young man – or, younger than one would suspect. At about thirty-five years of age, he had an air of accomplishment about him that was perhaps not fully undeserved, and when he looked at them with cool blue eyes, the team felt as though they were being analysed. So often had they done so themselves, however, they were quick to watch any body language, and when he leaned back in his comfortable chair were content with the knowledge that he was just another officer.

"The DNA is being analysed," he told them; "and not much else was found. Your babysitter, Mister Morgan-" he turned to the agent; "She told us that she got a glimpse of the man who attacked her, but that he was wearing a mask."

"A team of men?" Spencer suggested; "The way our houses were trashed and any 'bystanders' were assaulted indicates an intense aggression not usually portrayed in women."

"It could be that the lackeys were men, but the masterminds we have no idea about. This was pre-planned, don't forget."

The chief looked at Hotchner; "How do you figure?"

With a great sigh, he dived into an explanation, though from the looks of his team he thought to himself that he need not have done so; "They knew us well enough to pinpoint who was in our family and who was just there at the time. Jessica had a friend over who was attacked, but left behind. Agent Jareau's family was taken in its entirety. Agents Reid and Morgan had a babysitter, Mrs Murray, who was assaulted and left behind, while Alaric was taken."

"Could be good guesses, or they're looking for something specific," he theorised. Spencer realised then that perhaps he was trying to prove himself as on their intellectual level. It was one of the many issues they ran into with certain forces; they felt not only their authority challenged, but their intellect insulted by the better trained, more capable agents.

"They also knew the cars we take when we go to work," Derek said; "We all have SUVs for work, but we drive our own cars when we're off-duty. Reid doesn't even drive. He has a bike."

It brought a soft, sad smile to Spencer's face when he thought of his bike, and the new tandem he'd bought so as to include Alaric on his little cycling trips. If they never found her, it would rust away wherever he'd left it, a cruel reminder to what they had and what they lost.

The chief had nothing to reply to that. Instead, he leaned back once more and began reciting to them what they knew, which was very little, and what they theorised, which was a lot. That was until each agent picked apart several theories on the spot, and disregarded a number of them on sheer ridiculousness. When it seemed they would get nowhere else, they disbanded for coffee and tea, with Spencer beside Derek so they might discuss their own ideas.

"Alaric was the highest risk," Reid said; "We have a dog. Clooney must have put up quite a fight, not least because you've put him in classes."

"He's a good guard-dog, but with a hammer or mallet someone can put him down quite easily." He shivered at the thought; "Murray might've been harder, though. She had to be caught completely by surprise or else it wouldn't have worked. She would have screamed and alerted everyone on the street."

Spencer sighed; "Where would Alaric be at this point?"

"Murray said she was having lunch. Police said that there was a path of destruction until the end of the hall. She probably put up one Hell of a fight before she went with them."

He gave another sad smile, this one even softer than the last, sprinkled with some pride and another, higher note of loss; "She's a brave little girl. Of course she would."

"We've got to find her." Derek resolved with a hard face; "Before anything else happens."

It was then that a strange masked man left at the door a package, and the entire office went wild with the sounds of a suspected bomb.


	12. Video Star

The 'bomb' was soon revealed to be a package left for the Special Forces team, and so routine procedures were called off.

As calm returned to the officers and the bullpen grew still, Spencer had to stop himself from trembling. What he had seen of packages left for victims' parents had either been filled with body parts, souvenirs, taunts or demands. Few times had they revealed much of the kidnappers' location. They did give an insight into what their mind-set was like, though, and in a time when they had little to go on, that was more valuable to them than words could describe.

"Want me to open it?" the CIO asked, and thankfully his face was soft, the tenderness in his voice genuine; "In case it's something…unsavoury?"

Derek took the box, which was sealed on the man's desk, and pulled it towards him. His fingers tapped on the side as though preparing himself. He bit his lip, a method of bracing his mind for whatever he might find, but when his thoughts glimpsed over a severed ear or a mutilated tongue, he resolved not to think of the worst case scenario.

Hotch stood at his side; "Open it, Morgan."

Orders he could follow. With but a moment's hesitation, Derek tore the tape that sealed it shut, the 'rip' that sounded through the air like the tearing of Spencer's nerve, and like a frightened child he turned so that he was facing JJ.

Her eyes were soft and sympathetic when she looked at him. They felt the same, and he had always struggled with his emotions in the way only experience could help him. If still he needed the occasional support, she would be there to provide it.

"Thank God," Derek gave a relieved sigh and Spencer turned, only to see him holding a video; "No body parts."

Hotch, though happy to see nothing more gruesome was inside, let his mind then venture over the tape. It was old VHS; few shops would have sold them, and if they did the sales would be very small indeed. Perhaps they would have records of who bought them? Regulars they knew by name?

"Don't celebrate just yet," JJ warned them; "We need to watch it, first."

Alaric spoke little about what she had endured. There was a bruise that blossomed on her cheek, and with it Will suspected there would be many more. He dare not think that the worst had happened – it was too gruesome, even for a man who had seen his fair share of victims, and watched more than enough documentaries to know the horrible aftermath.

"Alaric, can you talk to me?" he asked, and when her eyes neither moved nor blinked went on; "I need you to tell me what you saw out there. Did you see anything that might help us get out? Any windows? Doors? Phones?"

Still, she was silent. Perhaps to a mind unacquainted with her, the girl looked to be traumatised. But within that quiet façade there were many cogs turning, a noisy machine at work that boomed with theories, facts and short glimpses of data, like that of a supercomputer boosted with a human conscious. She hadn't seen anything in her time out of the room; no, nothing that could help them escape. But she had learnt their voices, knew what they wanted, and in that she hoped that she could sus what their next moves would be.

The video was as expected. In a dark room, Spencer was immobilised by the sight of Alaric, shrouded in shadow, with what seemed to be a gun pointed at her head. It looked as though she were being held by terrorists; the kidnappers wore masks to hide their identity, and large scarves that wound around their necks and over their heads, with their arms cocked at right angles to assure the barrels were at her head.

"I, Alaric Morgan, along with Jessica Brooks, her nephew Jack Hotchner, William LaMontagne, and his son Henry, have been kidnapped," her voice cracked on the last note, but whether out of genuine fear or for appearances it was hard to say. Alaric had never reacted normally to many situations; it was one of her charms, Derek argued, that she was as socially inept as Spencer, and though her great moral compass guided her she still found herself bypassing many of the formalities people put themselves through.

The gun was pressed further to her head. He muttered something inaudible, and through minute body language the agents could see her contempt.

Derek smiled: _She's not too scared, then._

"We're being kept in a secret location until the demands of our kidnappers are met," her eyes stared into the camera while she read aloud, wide and unafraid, though to an untrained eye evasive, as if she were trying not to think of her situation; "Those demands are the imprisonment of the BAU members Doctor Spencer Reid, Agent Derek Morgan, Agent Jennifer Jareau, and Director Aaron Hotchner. Unless these people are specifically targeted, and proof of their imprisonment is made apparent via local news channels, the kidnappers will systematically send videos that depict beatings of all five hostages – the children will not be spared."

Spencer's blood ran cold. As he looked into Alaric's eyes, he willed her to say something; anything that might wake him up from his horrible nightmare and reveal that she was standing over him in his bed, urging him to check downstairs for a strange noise she'd heard.

Jennifer breathed out next to him as one of the kidnappers slammed the butt of his gun against the girl's cheek, shouting something incomprehensible to her, and a dark bruise blossomed where it had struck.

"My God."

Alaric coughed and gasped, but carried on, perhaps on order; "This won't be the last time you hear from us. If our kidnappers' demands aren't met in three days, one of us will be killed. The victim will be random."

With that, Alaric looked up as though for confirmation, and the screen went dark.

"Those bastards," Derek spat; "Those bastards!"

Hotchner was more collected; "Well, at least now we know they're working in a team."

"We knew that before," Spencer reminded him.

"Yes, but this is confirmation. Now we can throw out most other theories and just keep the group-orientated ones."

Jennifer was quick to contribute; "They've definitely got a grudge against us. But why just us? Why not everyone else on the team, if these are a group of people we've sent to prison?"

"Are there any cases we specifically had an influence on?"

Spencer searched his mind. There were a few, but only a small handful, and he was unsure if they had been released since their incarceration.

"I'll call Garcia and-"

They were interrupted by a flurry of colour appearing at the door, and the technical analyst appeared as if by magic.

"I'm here," she said; "The police wouldn't let me leave. It took hours. Questions, questions and more questions, just because I'm Godmother to two of your kids."

After a heavy sigh, she added; "I've brought some external hard drives and my laptop. Give me a minute and I'll be as useful to you as I always am."


	13. Lost

Spencer spent much of his time going over case files, and what little was left he spent thinking of her. Derek did what he could to provide comfort – warm hot chocolate, tea, food, and an abundance of handheld luxuries with which to pass the time, but none seemed to have an effect on Reid's constant misery.

Garcia unearthed files that showed direct links with all four of the agents. These were killers that had either stalked, assaulted, imprisoned or threatened them, and as a result served extended sentences. Many had been released for good behaviour and signs of remarkable recovery. But it was a list too long to be one team, with many of the offenders not team-players. The BAU hurried to narrow down who it could be, but for Spencer and Derek, the process was too slow.

Reid was on a long overdue lunch break when he was approached by Derek. The elder man had a slight smile on his face, marred by sadness, and when he sat down beside him to lay his folded forearms on the table, the smile was gone altogether.

"The video's too dark to get a handle on location," he said with a weary voice; "She's echoing, so it's likely she's in a room, but we've got no idea where that room is."

"Any footage from the CCTV cameras?" the genius asked, though he knew it was hopeless. The cameras didn't go far enough. Most were trained on official buildings, and those that weren't were hardly in opportune places.

"None. They covered their tracks."

"Not hard to do that these days," he sighed.

There was a shrug from Derek, who liked to believe that if he wanted, he could track down whoever was giving him trouble. That now he couldn't even find Alaric gave him reason to doubt himself.

Spencer sat in silence for a while. There was little to say to each other, due to the fact that if they spoke again, the case would inevitably come up. They were under express orders not to speak of it when they were on breaks; a rule that Hotchner reinforced, even with his own son missing, as he believed their minds needed that time to gather themselves. It did little to ease their apprehension or give them fresh ideas. What it did do, at least in Spencer's eyes, was waste minutes already so precious to them.

It was when the hour was nearing that Reid spoke again; "One of the last things we did with Alaric was leave her alone."

"We had a job to do."

"We still left her alone."

"We can't be there all the time, Spence. There are other things in our lives – important things. People's lives depend on us doing them."

He shrugged with a defeated look; "We should take some time off. She hasn't really been given the time to grieve properly. She's never visited their graves."

Another pause followed. Morgan had never thought of that. Alaric didn't ever ask to go and see her brothers, and rarely did she mention them if she could help it. There were a few times at night when her cries had been so loud that he was woken up by them. To hear her screaming, over and over, that she wanted Harry back, that she wanted Lewis, was hard for him to bear. He was no miracle worker. So why was it, then, that he'd never thought to take her to their graves?

"It's Halloween tonight," Spencer said, almost as an afterthought.

"What does that have to do with anything?" Derek's voice was sullen, moody and distracted, as if the tangents he so often loved were beginning to irritate him. If Spencer noticed, he did not call attention to it.

"This is the night when the supposed link between our world and the spirit world is at its weakest."

"And?"

"I've never been a superstitious man," he sighed; "but I hope, if there's even a modicum of truth to it, Alaric will be looked after while we're not there."

There was silence once more. Around them there was the stylish interior of the BAU conference room, blinds once again opened so as to allow strips of shadow to mar the light, as if they were sitting on the pelt of a strangely patterned zebra. Spencer heard outside the room people milling about, on both his case and the cases of other parents, and some missing persons' documents that had long been left due to no apparent match to a serial killers' MO.

Where once Reid had been thrilled to be a part of that working hive, now he was detached from it, like a cog without a place, too rusted to be of any use. His smaller, better-oiled cog was missing. The bigger elder that ran them both, protected them from flying belts that might have snapped somewhere else in the machine, seemed to have lost his will to turn, and so Spencer sat there waiting for something to happen, willing for his cog to be returned so they could move again.

"I'm going to get some air," Derek said as he stood; "Back to work in five."

"Are you really hoping we'll find her?"

There was a pause. After the moment passed, Derek asked him to repeat his question.

"Do you think we'll find her? Alive, I mean."

"We've got serial killers being narrowed down. We've got an entire team out there working to catch these bastards. Of course we'll find her."

Spencer grimaced. There was no guarantee that they could find her alive, and even though he knew that was true, he wished Derek had contradicted him. If nothing else, it would give him hope in a hopeless situation.

Alaric was to survive with her wits for the time being. He was thankful that they were sharpened beyond her years.


	14. Animal Town

To kidnap five people was to lend a lot of time, effort, and resources.

Alaric knew this, and she'd no idea how it applied to her situation. Though the boys had woken and quivered beside their carers, still she was without hers, and so the constant mantra of logic and statistics ran through her head; perhaps the only things able to keep her sane.

They were fed meagre portions of what looked like surplus food. Grain, rice, stale bread, cold soup – it became their staple diet, even though they had no idea how much time passed in that windowless room.

_Enough to drive us mad_, she thought.

To the outside world, three days had passed. No longer could the BAU keep their investigation private. Pictures were sent to news channels, with descriptions of who may have taken them and what to expect if they were seen out in public. Jennifer tried to keep a professional face when she was speaking to the media, but a mother had limits, and she reached hers when constant questions of her son and husband's safety were yelled above the din.

Hotch kept his short and sweet. He afforded no time for questions, and had an air to him that made no reporter want to contend. Spencer and Derek, who went together, faced both questions on their sexuality and that of their 'daughter,' who the press had taken to rename 'Child Genius,' as 'Alaric' was too bland on a headline that read '…Kidnapped.'

Three days spent without her was like poison to Reid. He kept his mind busy with the case and, when he was unable to do so, dabbled more in literature. Zooming past him on his lunch break were fresh-faced young agents ready to make their mark, and though some gave him glances and apologetic smiles, he was under no illusions.

Their families' kidnap meant a high amount of recognition for whoever found them.

The house was cold. Though he didn't sleep in it – it was a crime scene now – Reid felt all the happiness within sucked out, as though the intruder had brought with him a vacuum to take away their memories. There was a pool of blood where Mrs Murray had fallen, and upstairs another, made by Clooney. There was a great mess in the hallway which ran down to the study. The study door was dented by what he could only assume was Alaric's fleeing body, too slow to outrun a man.

Inside Derek's room, more blood.

They found the blade somewhere near it. A long hunting knife – a gift, Morgan had explained, though when the investigation was over Reid had a feeling they would never see it again. The impression left in the carpet explained that Alaric had rolled under the bed to hide, and when it proved futile, had stabbed her attacker enough to run.

"And it still wasn't enough," Derek remembered Spencer muttering under his breath.

The elder came in to find the genius with his head in another book. He smiled, even if he didn't feel like it. There was much still to be happy about. The investigation was moving at a rapid pace, and although there were few matches to their profile, it meant they were more able to find out exactly who had taken their child. It was hard to admit that Alaric was the one they hurt for the most. The others had their own family – Hotchner and JJ – but that girl, without a mother, father, or any other relatives to speak of, only had Derek and Reid left.

"I was thinking we go back to the hotel and find a restaurant," he suggested as he sat opposite his friend; "Something close by. We haven't eaten properly in ages."

"We've been a little occupied," Spencer answered. His eyes carried no sharpness to them, nor his voice, but the idea of eating when he could be searching…it seemed idiotic to him. Alaric needed to be brought home before they worried themselves with anything else.

"You're thinking, aren't you?"

"When am I not?"

"We need to eat, Spence. We can't help her if we drop dead from exhaustion."

He shrugged, and noncommittally said; "We could take shifts. I do nights, you do mornings."

"Shifts? We're already taking long hours just to build up a profile. Until we get anything else from these people, we can't do much."

"I don't want to leave here, only for something major to happen and miss it."

"If something major happens, or the case develops in the three hours we're away, Hotch will call us back in. We all need a break. It's tough, it's unfair and I don't want to do it either, but if we keep at it like this we'll burnout before we can actually help anyone with anything. Especially Alaric. She's going to suffer if we don't take a break."

Alaric stood on shaky legs as, not for the first time, she was led out of the little room. Will and Jessica had had their turns, and now it seemed it was hers again. To kidnappers, she mused, anyone with cognitive function was considered an adult, and though she wanted to throw a tantrum and claw at these people's eyes, an odd calm settled around her.

_The calm before the storm¸ _she thought as she was led down a long, low-lit hallway, with a metallic door at the end that concealed some secret room.

Inside, there was but a metal table and two chairs, though one was fitted with restraints. It was in this one that she was sat. Buckled in, she came face-to-face with who she assumed was the leader of the operation.

A woman, she realised. Her face was hidden behind a small black mask, not unlike the ski masks robbers were so fond of, but her body was too feminine and slight to belong to a man. Her eyes, beady holes in her head, glared down at the girl as she sat in the mock-halo of light that surrounded them.

"Alaric Morgan?" she growled. Her voice had the effect of a cheese grater on the ears. If Alaric had to give it an orchestra, she would use monkeys on the violins, and elephants on the triangle. The glockenspiel would be handled by a great baboon, and the trombones were the instruments of lions, gazelles, and mad, crazy gorillas.

"Yes," Alaric said.

"We've got some questions for you."


	15. Past Lights

She gave them a look that bordered on the incredulous; "Questions? You, have questions for me? When did these roles get switched around?"

The woman's eyes glinted. Alaric fancied she saw madness in them. Perhaps it was more? Perhaps it was some insanity that had been exaggerated, some sort of trauma made worse for life, and the five people they kept hostage were hapless, innocent victims?

"We always wanted to ask you questions. They're important. They're going to expose what your so-called 'agents' really are."

"People who don't kidnap civilians and keep them locked up against their will?" she retorted, and then went on; "Let me talk to them. If you're insisting I stay here, I want to talk to the BAU."

There was a snort. Behind her host, Alaric realised there were two men with guns, stood either side of a door that she assumed led to the outside world. If not, the room must have acted as their headquarters. She could only imagine what luxuries hid within. Or it could have been as barren as a crash pad, as Derek had so often described to her; made to fit the essentials of life, but nothing further.

"You'd be an idiot to think any of you are innocent. And you don't make the rules here. You do as we say, or you die. Got it?"

It was her turn to snort; "Do you really think I'll believe you'd kill me? I'm an essential, not a liability. Without me you've got nothing to hold against Mister Morgan or Doctor Reid."

A sharp pain erupted in the side of her head, followed by the sound of a gun smashing against it. Somewhere in her mind, she wondered how she hadn't noticed the gunman approaching. Then, she question how pain could register before sound. Soon enough she had recovered, if with a hand pressed against her wound and hard, indignant eyes staring at her captors.

"Questions," she said; "Of course."

There was scrabbling somewhere in the darkness. From the shadows a hand appeared, clutching a beige dossier that was labelled 'MORGAN.'

"You've got an interesting history, haven't you?" the woman hummed as she skimmed through whatever file lay inside; "From Alaric Aldis, to Alaric Truman, to Alaric Morgan. Three names and no marriages. Oh, and two dead parents."

The girl looked away. Such was her shame that her cheeks flushed red, and despite herself she felt a stab of melancholy. Her parents were still her parents. Even as vile, disgusting murderers, barbarians of the highest degree, they had still given her a chance to walk on the Earth where she'd found her carers.

"Two dead, retarded brothers."

Her eyes snapped from the floor to her captor's face; "Shut up."

"Why? They're dead. There's no two ways about it. And, by the looks of things, your 'friends' – Derek Morgan and Spencer Reid – are responsible for that."

"It's not their fault. It wasn't ever their fault. Someone else shot them."

"Someone else…on the same team. Unfortunate that two innocent people had to die, when they were the obvious victims of sociopaths. That's what we're here to stop, Alaric; we want to make sure no one else dies because of the BAU."

There was a moment of silence from the girl. She could see her brothers, their happy, smiling faces in a light so intense, she would call it angelic. Still, she felt that she could have saved them. If she had been smarter, they would have lived. But that was a song she would have to listen to for her entire life, and thinking about it now would do little to help her.

"The BAU helps to catch murderers. How many serial killers have you stopped?" she asked. When she received no answer, she went on; "Insurgency groups always promise something grand in return for support, but they never seem to have a plan for it later on. What do you promise, hm? Eternal life? Redemption?"

A voice, a man's, answered her question; "Our promise is to get people who pretend to be heroes off the street. Spencer Reid first."

"And why's that?" she challenged.

"We ask the questions here," the woman resumed control of the situation, though not without unhappy grunts from her men, who seemed more than happy to continue arguing if it meant they could justify themselves; "What do you think possessed Derek Morgan to adopt you, Alaric?"

There was a pause. Then:

"Guilt, partly. He felt he'd failed me. Love. We were close during the investigation, and after everyone died…he made it clear he didn't want me to go anywhere else. To risk anything else."

"Nothing to do with your attempted suicide, then?"

"How do you know about that?" her eyes narrowed. To ask her questions about her family was one thing, but to then speak of case files was another matter entirely.

Her question was ignored. The insurgents, if so they could be called, had seen past her methods and had adapted to them. She wasn't dealing with idiots, then.

_How unfortunate._

"What did it feel like, Alaric?"

She looked away.

"To have everything taken away from you, just like that, and then have to start from scratch again? To be a little genius in a world full of animals?" the woman leaned forward on crossed arms, her ski mask enough to send shivers down Alaric's spine; "I think you want to be close to Doctor Reid. I think that you think he's like you. But he's not. He's a murderer. He's not better than the people he puts away, or the people he shoots. And he's supposed to be a person you relate to?"

"He's a good man," she muttered. Her repetition did nothing to convince them.

"Good men don't kill others."

"Demons run when a good man goes to war," was her challenge, and it came across stronger than she thought it would; "If we're talking about right and wrong, I'd like to remind you that you've got four innocent people locked up in that room, and no real justification for it other than an underground war."

More glinting eyes, and she imagined a smile had appeared under the woman's mask; "And why not five innocent people?"

Alaric fell silent. Once more, she realised she'd not included herself in the innocent, but rather, the guilty.

And the questions went on. Went on until she had no idea what to think. Until all she could think was how much she wanted to be home, wrapped in Derek's arms as they watched a scary film, or sat on Spencer's lap with a good book. Home was so far away that she felt she would never return. And did she deserve to? These insurgents hadn't blamed her, but they hadn't explicitly said that she wasn't to blame for the death of her brothers.

Derek looked up from his work. Somewhere, he could feel Alaric's distress. A niggling thought at the back of his mind that made him feel worse than he ever had before.

_They better not be hurting her,_ he thought: _I…I'll kill them if they do._


	16. A Small Betrayal

It wasn't Alaric's place to know that her place with her captors was as their disciple.

They had planned it in such a way that the doubt was almost of her own accord. The leader of the group – a short woman, with long brown hair and beady brown eyes – had lost her brother, himself a murderer, at the hands of the BAU. She was the one to have gathered other murderers' siblings and make a group out of them. And it had been her order, amidst the ecstasy of the first days, that told Alaric Morgan was to become one of them.

The team was a collection of eight people, with two the heads of command. The pair were close enough to have been married. The man, who called himself Dave, had little wrong with him other than a desire to see justice brought for his dead, killer sister. He was blessed with a beautiful complexion of olive skin, black hair that sat in luscious curls on his head, and a smile that knocked most women to the floor. All of this was accompanied by the knowing, deep blue eyes that held so much character, and yet kept something hidden deep within.

His partner was the short woman, who was known as Rita. It took no genius to know that their names weren't real. Aliases that were devised so that they could call to one another, and should one of them go rogue and alert the police, they could simply pack up and escape without too much trouble.

The girl was treated in the same way as the other hostages. There were times when she was taken out and fed more lies, some of which held a notion of truth to them, but so exaggerated that it was hard to know what was fact and what was fiction.

In that time, Reid and Morgan had gathered with the team a small, collective profile of several different people, all of which had led them on a trail that didn't follow known serial killers. They had deduced that the opportunistic way in which all hostages were stolen was the result of a devious leadership; that was, someone resourceful behind the kidnap. It wouldn't be too far a stretch to say there was joint leadership.

Spencer hadn't slept in days. He mused that, even when she wasn't asleep, Alaric kept him rested. Now that she was gone, it was hard for him to relax and let his guard down, even when it seemed they would make more progress with the case if he were to sleep.

"Are you alright?" Emily asked him on a bright, sunny morning at the BAU building. Outside the window, where the blinds were open, he could hear birds twittering to each other like joyous children, their songs so beautiful that they were incongruous with his thoughts. The light that flooded washed over the office to make it seem like a striped zebra. It reached even to the darkest corners, where there were secreted some of the more furtive of their agents, the ones that were paranoid about others taking credit for their work.

"Fine," he lied, though not convincingly. The pits under his eyes were like black crescent moons. His skin had grown pale for want of nutrients. When he spoke, his voice was quiet, subdued, as though it was being used somewhere in his head and could only give a little to his throat.

She took the seat beside him, giving him a hard, penetrating stare; "You don't look fine. You look like you've been through Hell and back, and you came to work the next day."

He waved her concerns away and looked at the files, which even to his sleep-deprived brain made perfect sense; "I'm trying to find our families before it's too late. Have we heard anything more from them?"

"No. They haven't responded since our press conference. I'm not sure if they're biding their time, or…or…"

"Or picking which one of them they're going to cut apart."

He shook his head. He knew it was cruel, but Spencer almost hoped the first to die would be Jessica or Will. Should someone's blood have been spilt, shouldn't it be the ones who were older, who had a chance at life before it was ended? And yet his mind refused to go much further down that path, for it was dark and swathed with shadows, and whoever he passed on it was a twisted version of himself, wearing a mask that looked like him but held nothing of his character.

"Where's Morgan?" he asked after a while of quiet, once he realised Emily was still beside him.

"He's around. I think he went to get coffee. He's bringing some for you."

Spencer nodded; "That's nice of him."

"He's worried about you. We all are."

"Well," he replied; "You shouldn't be. I'm not the one that's missing. Once we've got them back, then I'll look after myself. Until then, we need to focus."

His words brooked for no argument, and the determination in his eyes told Emily she wouldn't have won either way. With a sad smile at him, she stood, and went to her paper-covered desk to begin researching all the possible routes they had come up with.

Garcia was the next to appear, with Morgan at her elbow. Both threw each other a look of concern before they approached Spencer. His head was down, and whilst muttering to himself he wrote something in a language unknown to them – perhaps to ensure only he would be aware of any mistakes he made.

"Reid, you need to slow down," Garcia was the first to speak. The genius looked up, at first surprised, and then defensive.

"We need all the help we can get."

"And we're getting that. We've got everyone working on this case. We're going to catch these guys and get Alaric back, one way or another." Derek put the coffee cup beside him; "But we're not going to be able to if you drop dead from exhaustion."

There was a snort as he took a sip of his drink; "I'll sleep when we're closer to finding them."

It was then that Penelope sighed and, laying her hand on his shoulder, said; "Until you've gone to sleep, we're not going to tell you any developments. Hotchner said he needs you at maximum capacity. You can barely keep your eyes open."

He stared wide-eyed at first her, and then at Morgan. It was almost as if they had betrayed him. It was almost as if they had kicked him off of the case for good and said, if he wanted to return, he was to renounce all personal connection with Alaric.

"What?"

"It's for the best," Derek told him, his eyes apologising over and over again, softer than the most expensive cotton; "You need to sleep. You need rest. And if you're not going to do that while you're on the case, then you're being kicked off until you do. Alright?"

And though he protested and argued his point, it was obvious to Reid that no one would change their mind. Derek told him that he would set up a place for him to sleep in the building like most of them had, so he could least remain close if anything major happened – i.e. that they found where their families were and were about to go after them. It wasn't something he wanted to agree to, but Spencer felt he had no choice in the matter.

Back in the darkness of the interrogation room, Alaric sat in that single halo of light, kicking in rhythmic patterns against her chair. She faced her captors with a cool reception; the sort that came from being both angered and, ultimately, tired at her situation, but not so much that she would make a song and dance about it.

Rita smiled at her, which was difficult behind a ski mask; "You want to get out of here?"

"Is there a way out that doesn't involve a body bag?" she replied.

"Yes, actually. For all of you. But that depends on whether or not they do as we've ask."

She snorted; "So that's a no, then?"

"Do you realise how special you are, Alaric? You've been through so much, and you're still standing," Rita leaned forward; "We could use someone like you. Someone young enough to carry on what we're doing, if we die."

There was a pause. Then, a laugh. It was small and cruel, almost harsh, and when it ended Alaric's eyes rose back to her captor.

"I won't be your little puppet." She said.

"But you will be the BAU's?" was Rita's response.

And it was enough to make Alaric fall silent.


	17. Dainty Ally

The change in Alaric was subtle.

She no longer spoke to her captors in a harsh way. She stopped asking questions about their methods. She answered questions as they were issued to her, and not unlike days before, kept herself away from the other hostages. It was as though she were subconsciously separating herself from them. Admitting that she wasn't one of them.

Her advanced mind was supplemented by the occasional book. For that, she was grateful to David, and gave him more trust than she did his counterpart Rita. The pair were intellectual equals, it seemed, for they discussed things well over their average interrogation time, speaking of poems and philosophy and all manner of unanswerable questions. It was refreshing to find a friendly face where there seemed to be none.

Unbeknownst to her, David and Rita still singled her out as a key part of their plan. On a morning not unlike any other, but holding the label as their month-long anniversary in chains, David called her into the interrogation room, followed by armed guards as she always was.

Alaric sat in her chair with grace. It always surprised him to see how well she had adapted to her surroundings. The girl was a survivor, if ever he'd seen one.

"Hey there, Alaric. How're you doing?"

"Alright," she replied; "I slept better last night."

"Did you, now? Dream anything fun?"

She hesitated for the briefest of moments, and then said; "Spencer and Derek. It was a memory-dream; when I spent my first night in my room."

David frowned. Though he had grown used to the mentions of Spencer Reid and Derek Morgan, he still thought Alaric was wasted on them. Better for the girl to have some true role models to look up to, and not some government sycophants who would kill someone's brother for a 'good deed.'

"You know something?" he said, leaning forward to give her a smile. Long ago he had abandoned using his mask around her. He felt she was trustworthy enough; and, even if she weren't, what did it matter? She was hardly in a position to go running off to the police.

"I know a lot of things. Some people say it's a problem."

He laughed; "I think you and I are becoming fast friends, don't you?"

Alaric hesitated once more, but this time longer, with more trepidation on her face. She hadn't said to herself that the man was a friend. More an acquaintance with which she could focus her energy on. It was hard to remember that he was one of the components of her capture.

"I wouldn't call us friends," she admitted, ignoring the way his face fell; "Friends don't tend to kidnap friends and keep them in tiny cells with other friends."

"Oh, but you see, we had to do that. We had to make sure you were a survivor. And you are! Now we can let you in on our big secret."

Her eyebrow raised; "Secret?"

There was a sort of giddiness about David that she hadn't seen before. In the harsh halo of light, she thought it was terribly misplaced. All around them there was gloom, men with guns, and a sense of impending dread no matter which angle the situation was looked at from. Giddiness was an anomaly. She wasn't sure if she was comfortable with the change.

"Yes, secret." David took a deep breath; "We brought you here for a reason. You, specifically. See, we've been planning this for a long time, Alaric – longer than the 'almighty' BAU will ever find out. We've all got a score to settle with those agents, and whoever's in there, no matter how old right now, are guilty by association."

Alaric nodded; "And so am I. I'm associated with Spencer and Derek. I'm their-"

"You're not their daughter, Alaric. You're the embodiment of their guilt. The fact they couldn't save your family and indirectly led to your attempt suicide has driven them to take you on, so they know you won't kill yourself. See, all they're after is a clean conscious."

She stilled. She had never thought of it in that way before. It made logical sense; many times the pair had worked with children, but it had been her that was chosen. Why? The only difference between her and them was the fact that her parents were the killers, and that she had threatened to end their entire existence with her death. Could it have been that their guilt was the only reason they had stayed with her? The only reason they valued her more so than whomever else they met at their job?

"So," David went on; "I'm going to offer you a deal. A little way of telling them that it's alright, they don't have to look after you anymore, because you've found a new place to settle in. It's a win-win situation."

"What?" she asked.

"Here, with us."

There was a moment in which all was still. Then, she laughed. She laughed until she felt tears stinging her eyes and her heart pounding in giddiness. She laughed until her sides hurt and her ribs felt as though they were fracturing. David took it all in his stride, staring at her with a face that never changed expression, and was too unreadable to detect what he was thinking.

She soon gathered herself, but her resolve was weak; "I can't join you. Derek and Spencer are my friends, if they aren't my parents by now. I owe them too much to go behind their backs."

"And what about their mistrust in you, hm? How they always tell you to stay by them, like they're worried you're going to run off and get yourself hurt?"

"That's…" she paused; "That's normal. Most parents do that."

"Or so you've been told?"

More silence.

"You see, you haven't had the best of starts in life, Alaric. And we don't want you to carry on being a dummy for the government. We want you to join our crusade – to avenge our brothers and sisters, and in return we'll help you avenge yours. Doesn't that sound wonderful? Isn't that great?"

"But-"

"I'll give you time to think about it," he waved her up, and two guards appeared at her side; "When you've made your decision, let me know as soon as possible."


	18. Realisation

Spencer took those hours off, but no longer. If he was absent there was more chance that he would miss a major development. Minus sleeping, his breaks consisted of twenty minutes twice a day and a forty-minute lunch, but these were often spent pouring over notes or redoing what had already been fixed. It was the potential danger that his sweet Alaric was in which gave him the strength to go on.

Derek, too, found it hard to rest. He did so out of necessity, and though his breaks were short they were enough to revitalise him. Alaric wouldn't be another victim to identify in the morgue. Her name wouldn't end up printed on a headline as some found body, and her story wouldn't be one of the countless others that served to warn people that they were never safe; that even in their own homes, they could be targets to someone's sick desires.

A month had passed and they were no closer to discovering the kidnapper's location. Hope was waning. Jennifer had to have constant breaks to gather herself, and Hotchner was on the verge of showing emotion. Derek and Spencer had buried themselves so far in their work that when the date passed, they felt almost as if they had been working on it for years.

They went back to Spencer's apartment at night, rather than return to Derek's house. He was glad to have kept it when he moved. With his disposable income it was easy to pay rent, and though he went to it some nights to be away from others, the entire place was covered in a fine layer of dust when first they came in.

Each day they would return to the BAU, confident that _that_ would be the day – that they would find Alaric and their nightmare would be over. But it never was. It was never more than trawling through papers and reading notes, or the occasional discussion on profiles.

Then, a miracle.

Not like those miracles heard about so often, where someone struck gold with a far-fetched idea, or something happened at the speed of light that turned the tide in their favour, but it was more a slow-build. Spencer had sat at his desk and not moved for hours, when one of the team – JJ, if he recalled – had queried if they were looking in the wrong place.

"Impossible," Derek said; "We can't be. It's far too calculated to be done by anyone but people who've done this before. Besides, they targeted us. Only UNSUBs we've been directly involved with will go to these lengths to watch us suffer."

"But they're not watching us!" the blonde pointed out; "Except on the news, maybe, but not personally. They can't see how we act when we're not on television."

"Perhaps they're fantasising it?" Spencer said.

"Fantasises aren't enough – eventually, they have to see the real thing. Has anyone noticed someone following them recently? Anyone at all?"

They all shook their heads. Hyper-vigilance for clues as to where their families were made it clear they would have noticed a stalker.

"Then we can be sure that they're not watching us suffer."

Spencer sighed; "We only have to tweak the profile slightly to erase that part of it. Why is it so relevant?"

"Because it might mean that we're not dealing with known serial killers here. It might mean that our entire profile is out the window and all of our suspects are redundant."

Derek gave her a look over his desk, and saw the hope she had in her eyes that she was right. Despite his own hope, he felt it necessary to remind her of the problem her suggestion posed.

"Throwing out the profile means we have to start from scratch. That's a lot to get through, and even though we have a lot we've only really got some evidence to go on."

Emily, who had remained out of the conversation for the good of her sanity, chose that time to look up.

"Reid, you said a person took a picture of Alaric when she was outside a bookshop?"

"Do you really have to remind me about that? Yes, I know it was stupid not to keep my eye on her – I was distract-"

"No, Reid, I'm not criticising you. I'm using that behaviour to make an assumption. If the UNSUB was bold enough to get that close to Alaric – close enough to take a picture, and run off in the dark – that must mean they're quite the dominant and bold personality. The sort of guy that's seen a lot in society."

"A man?" Derek asked.

She nodded; "A man, maybe in a managerial position. He'll be in his mid-thirties, probably, and will have a direct connection to us in some way. He'll be awfully manipulative, but not in a physical sense, and is able to root out the weak from the strong."

Derek stood with his phone to his ear; "I'm calling Hotch."

What followed was a makeshift meeting called to discuss the new possibilities. Spencer was, of course, one of the most vocal. It wasn't until the issue of connection came up that something in his mind clicked.

"…A sibling…" he murmured, almost to himself.

"What's that, Reid?" Hotchner asked, hand pressed to his chin as the shadows thrown out by the shutters bladed across his face.

"Siblings!" he repeated. "The team could be siblings. They would know the ins and outs of the case and they could have a grudge against us!"

Derek cocked an eyebrow; "It makes sense, but…it's a bit out there, don't you think? Most siblings are ashamed to call their brothers and sisters theirs after they're convicted."

"Most, but not all. And think about it; if they've been keeping an eye on us, they're going to know how we act, how we talk, and who's important to us. They're going to target those they think will hurt us most."

The meeting adjourned on a positive note, glad that for once the situation seemed to be going their way. It wasn't until Spencer had lunged and caught Derek's arm that he thought anything was the matter.

"What is it?" he asked, turning to look into Spencer's eyes.

"They're siblings of serial killers, Morgan. If this is true, they'll probably know about Alaric."

"And what about her? She's a hostage to them."

"The leader is emotionally manipulative. Even she can be convinced. And because she'll be looking for other signs, she won't realise that she's being converted. Derek, this man could give her a case of Stockholm syndrome."

It was the sudden realisation dawning that made Derek's mouth drop open.


	19. Growth

The new profile, though slow-growing, was a strong and confident one. Without the restrictions of their suspects being incarcerated, the team found themselves better able to determine who might be involved, and who would be vindicated by their sibling's conviction.

But as they did that, so too did Alaric fall further into the pit of David's charms. He told her all that he felt she needed to know, true or not, exaggerated or fabricated, and even if she had some reservations beforehand they all fell away as time went on.

It was two weeks after their month-long anniversary that Alaric returned to their room with a triumphant smile.

"What's going on?" Will asked, long having lost hope of being discovered, his clothes tattered and with a horrific smell; "They going to kill one of us yet?"

He hadn't wanted to admit that possibility in front of his son, but futility bred despair. Henry sat beside him, his tiny body pressed up against his father's, and what little comfort he had didn't seem to waver at his words.

"No," she replied; "I'm going to join them."

There was a moment in which all was still. Then, Jessica sat up. Her eyes betrayed her shock, and though she tried to keep her calm her voice came out as a screech.

"What?!"

"They've shown me the light. They've made me realise that Derek and Spencer aren't trying to look after me – they're trying to ease their guilt. It's all so clear now."

The way she said it was so matter-of-fact that Will at first couldn't argue against it. It was only the sheer ridiculousness that moved him to speak.

"You've been brainwashed. They've filled your head with lies. Alaric," he lunged at her, and she was too slow to move out of his grip. The way he crouched made sure that his eyes were locked onto hers. She saw in them a great depth that she saw in only Spencer's, and a courage that only Derek's possessed.

He took a deep breath; "Alaric, you've got to understand me. These people aren't your friends. They aren't looking to save you. They just can't seem to grasp that their brothers and sisters did some real bad things, and needed to be locked up for it. Do you get that, Alaric?"

"My parents did bad things." She said slowly. It was almost a question.

"Yeah, yeah they did. People do bad things. But we shouldn't let ourselves fall into that mess, should we? Because if we do, we become bad too."

Alaric seemed to consider him for a moment. Her eyes sparked with a deep curiosity, something inherent that hadn't been squashed, and though she looked as if she might agree, another thought must have crossed her mind. She turned from him, perhaps to protect her principle now she had chosen her path, and went to the door where two guards were standing by for her.

She turned back to give him her parting words; "Derek and Spencer are nice. But I can't be their burden anymore. I belong here, with these people – they know what it feels like to have…bad people, in the family. I'll make sure you all stay safe, but…" she shook her head; "All I want is a place I can call mine."

It was then that she disappeared through the door, guards in tow. Her departure left a bitter taste in William's mouth.

_I didn't talk to her enough_, he blamed himself: _I didn't tell her it was alright. I didn't try to make her feel like we're all in this together. Shit, I'm the reason she's done this._

Spencer and Derek were working late that night, as with JJ and Hotchner, and surprisingly Garcia. They had seen little of her since the whole ordeal started. Her computer room was shut off and the constant sounds of tapping could be heard within, either with a keyboard or the chewed end of a colourful pen, and no one dared disturb her when she was so hard at work.

"Has anyone heard anything?" Spencer asked her when all was quiet.

"We haven't got anything new, if that's what you mean. Nothing's been sent to my computer for analysing since this all started."

"That's…" he had no idea if he felt comforted or not. If nothing had been sent, surely nothing had happened. But on the same note, he wanted to know how Alaric was doing, what to expect if she was found soon and brought home.

"Hey," he turned to see Derek leaned from his desk; "It's going to be alright. She'll be found and everything will go back to normal. Alright? You've got to stop thinking the worst."

"What else can I think?" he said, and then thought better of it, because he didn't want another discussion about his coping strategies and he didn't want to imagine Alaric having an unrealistic, happy life with her kidnappers; "I know we'll find her. I'm just worried what state she'll be in. We've got a lot of things to deal with when she comes home."

JJ and Hotch looked over. It was Hotch who spoke.

"We're all worried about our families. We've got to approach this with the same mind we would any other victim."

Spencer stood; "I know. I'm sorry. I've just – give me a minute. I'll be back with a clear head."

He was gone in the next moment. Outside, he walked through the clear, streetlight-lit streets that before he was loath to see at night, because it meant he was walking home late after a long case. Now all he wanted to do was to be walking those streets to Alaric. He didn't care where, how, or when; all he cared about was that he would and he would have Alaric at the end of it.

"I miss you," he admitted to himself, and he asked every deity he could think of to return her to him. He was desperate enough to turn to God, who he wasn't sure existed, which must have conveyed some of how desperate he was to see her.

Alaric sat in the halo-lit room, waiting for David to return, when the thought of her treachery's repercussions crept into thought. She was a cunning Miss, after all. Did William think she would so willingly walk into her enemies' clutch?

Alaric wanted to see her carers again. And she was willing to let bad men die to do that.


	20. Cold Home

When the house was no longer a crime scene, it became to Derek like a husk.

Even as he reintroduced Clooney to the surroundings and sat on his sofa, there was something missing from it. Some sense of life he couldn't quite put his finger on. He wanted to hear above him the patter of Alaric's feet, or Spencer calling from the kitchen that the toast had caught on fire. He wanted to listen to the rain outside and feel, if not truly be, at peace.

But Alaric was not there. Spencer had left to buy a takeaway, and when he returned he had agreed with Derek that they needed to spend time at their home. It would do no good for the girl to return and find them more uneasy than she.

The curtains were drawn so he could see out to the night. Perhaps he felt there would be some revelation in it. Perhaps, if he stared hard enough, or moved little, some deity would appear and tell him where Alaric was, tell him that she was safe and unharmed and they were worrying for nothing.

Derek chuckled to himself as he stood from the sofa: _If only life were so simple_.

Upstairs, he went to Alaric's room. It was just as she had left it. Books on a shelf and the television on the wall, untouched as always, with a fine layer of dust coating the screen. Her bed was made up; a habit of Mrs Murray, for she was the sort to keep a clean house and loath not to do the same with her charges.

He sat on the bed, and felt as though his entire stomach was weightless. The fact that she had not slept there in months meant that Alaric's room was cold. In the back of his mind, which he assumed dealt with terror, his imagination went wild and said that she would never return, for she was lying dead somewhere, and Derek had ultimately failed her.

That was when he felt the first tear prick his eyes.

The dam broke. Morgan's emotions came out of him like the fastest of floods, wetting his cheeks and hurting his throat as he cried. Around him, the room became more a tomb for his daughter, who his last memory was their fond goodbye when they left for work, and the haunting call that told him she was missing.

"Derek?"

He didn't look up to Spencer's voice. So far gone was he that Morgan struggled to register it. The soft sound of Reid's footsteps on the carpet were lost to his sobbing, and though he was embarrassed, he couldn't regain the composure to assure him all was well.

"I feel the same," he admitted. There was a dip in the bed as Spencer sat beside him. Derek still didn't look up. "I didn't want to come up here, because I'd cry to."

"Then why don't you?" he murmured through tears.

"I don't know. I guess…I've cried enough."

There was a silence. In it, Derek got control of himself enough to look up, and saw through his watery gaze the accepting eyes of his friend. There was no contempt in them that he could see. There was no question as to why Derek had pretended to be so strong, when it actual fact he was keeping his emotions at bay. Then again, Spencer probably knew that he was doing it, and instead of confronting him had waited for them to come out on their own.

"Feel better?" he asked. When Derek gave a hesitant nod, he went on; "Some studies have said that crying actually does nothing for our wellbeing. A sample of people were used, and fifty-five percent said that they felt no better after crying, whilst twenty percent said they felt better. A smaller percentage said they felt worse."

Morgan gave a small chuckle; "You're going off in a tangent again."

"I know. I thought it might make you feel better."

"Why?"

"Not everything's changed. I'm still the same. You're still the same. Afterwards, we might get more careful, but we're not going to treat Alaric differently."

There was a small snort; "I'm keeping her on a harness for the rest of her life after this."

"I'll give you the money."

They shared a laugh – a true, genuine laugh, that was so incongruous with their melancholy surroundings that it felt almost like rebellion. As they were coming down, Clooney crept in, sniffing here and there for scents of Alaric, and when he could find none let out a whine.

"Don't be sad," Derek reached down to stroke his fur; "It won't be for long."

Spencer nodded; "Our profile goes public tomorrow."

"It could make the UNSUBs more careful."

"Please – they're bold enough to go into our houses in broad daylight, steal our families, and then taunt us. I think releasing a profile isn't going to do much more than rile them to reply." He shook his head; "Might even make them sloppy."

It was a hope both of them shared. That the profile would give them some shot of hearing some news, if not good news, about their beloved children and stolen relatives. If they could hear that Alaric was safe, they would thank every deity they could, every person involved, and they would count their lucky stars that in the spectrum of kidnappers she could be with, she was with those who were not also murderers.

Which spurred Spencer to say; "There's be no murders by these people. I think, soon, Hotch's boss will take us off the case."

"What do you mean?"

"We're a team to catch murderers, not kidnappers. Kidnapping is for other people. The police. Not for the BAU."

"They could just as easily turn into murderers. Besides, they're our family. Our people. Why would anyone want to take us off this case?"

A slight pause. Then; "Because other people are missing family too."

And in the silence that followed, all that could be heard was Clooney's agonised whine.


	21. Tap Tap

It took a few days for Alaric to be trusted with the group's secrets, and when she was it was revealed to her that very few of the members trusted one another.

It was a ramshackle team at best. Personalities clashed and though they had a purpose to unify them, oftentimes they would come to blows, or else would bicker behind the scenes like a herd of uneducated children. It was no surprise to her that David felt they wouldn't last under continued pressure.

"A sad thing, really," he shook his head; "They're all here for the same thing, but they just think we're all out to get each other. It's not the sort of atmosphere I want to foster. It's a terrible shame."

Alaric listened, and even with his charming smile and the shake of his head, she'd a niggling feeling he was glad for the hostilities. How else was he to control the rabble, without them all afraid of each other?

They sat in a smallish room, with counters and single table set, as well as a box television that sat on an old, rotten carcass of a wooden cabinet in the corner. The television hadn't been on, as far as she knew. She half imagined its feed would be constant static, without a single channel able to broadcast anything.

Alaric sat on the counter, leaning against a wall coloured a sickly green, as David rummaged in the cupboards above her for something she couldn't see.

"I want you to do something for me, Alaric," he said as he searched; "Something important."

"What is it?" she asked. She likened him to a squirrel, desperately scrabbling at the ground in a hunt for winter's last acorn.

"Some of these guys don't think you're really one of us. They're hedging their bets that you're an opportunist – a Machiavellian personality, if you understand what I'm talking about."

"I do," she replied, but it held no indignation. If David were able to hear it, he would realise there was a weariness there, almost as if she were bracing herself for something she knew would be soul-crushing.

"So, Rita came along and told me we need a test. Something to show you're really on our side now. Do you understand me?"

"I do."

"Then, you'll do it?"

She smirked; "Depends what it is. Does it put me in harm's way? If so, I think I'd rather sit with the other hostages."

Internally, she cursed her use of the word 'other.' Had David been a behavioural analyst, he would have realised the inference. Alaric didn't identify with the group; instead, she was still that girl locked up in that little room, left as much in the dark as her fellow hostages, and not sympathising with her kidnappers.

It was a good thing David consisted of a lot of hot air. He presented himself as an intelligent man, but the same hateful fire that spurred his henchmen was in him, and it was what fuelled him in his quest for vengeance. Alaric felt she was in a safe enough situation.

"No, no. Nothing like that. I wouldn't have someone like you put in harm's way – that's for the lesser men." He shared a laugh, but who with Alaric wasn't sure; "I want you to call Spencer and Derek. Just call them, and make them think you're in danger."

"That's a tad psychopathic, don't you think?" she asked.

"That's the point. They want you to make them hurt, in any way you can. And you're in a better position to do that than we are."

"I don't think it's necessary."

"Are you trying to say you won't do it?" David's eyes became intense, and under them Alaric could feel her courage almost withering; "Because, if you think you're going to compromise this team, I can-"

"No, no – I'll do it. Just…give me a phone. Put the BAU's number in and I'll work on the rest."

David seemed happy to go searching for the phone.

Spencer and Derek were busy that day; the profile was to go live, and while they were sure it was perfect, there were still efforts to make certain it was.

When the phone rang, neither answered it.

"Guys, get that," Hotch called from the office; "It might be important."

"But-"

Derek cut Spencer's protest short by answering the phone.

His face transformed like a horror film. First, all the blood drained out of it, and then his brow fell and his features contorted in fury.

When his finger fell on the speaker, Spencer was still.

"I'm – it's so dark," Alaric said, and it sounded as though she were tapping on wood, as there was some background noise; "It's so dark and – oh, no. They've taken William. He keeps coming back…beaten up. And they've said if we talk too much, they'll do it to us too."

"Alaric?!" Derek shouted. Around them, a crowd had begun to gather. All of them listened with intent.

"Uncle Derek? Derek, please come help me. Please. I can't do this. I want to come home. Please take me home."

Spencer tried to speak, but his voice had disappeared. His throat was dry. Something was holding him back, and instead all he could do was let Derek talk to their 'daughter,' trying to both calm and learn from her.

"Sweetheart, what can you see? Is there something you can tell us about the room? Please, it's important. Don't cry. Please don't cry."

But the line cut short. The mood that washed over them was strange. A mix between melancholy, complete despair, and agony, but that was all drowned by a sense of overwhelming urgency.

"We have to get the recording," Spencer scrabbled around for his notebook, though he hadn't any need for it; "We need the recording. I recognise that tapping in the background."

"Reid-"

Derek tried to reach for him, but he knocked his hands away. So urgent were his eyes that Morgan fell silent.

"We need that recording. I recognise it, Derek. I taught it to her when we were watching an old war documentary," he took a deep breath; "It's Morse code. She was trying to tell us something."


	22. Transferring

Spencer made multiple attempts to decipher the code, but it was difficult work.

Whatever progress he made was slow, for there was a lot of background noise that at some points all but drowned it out, and her terrified voice hurt him no matter how transparent it was.

"What are we looking at?" Derek asked as he settled beside him. Reid had secreted himself away in one of the smaller, lesser used interrogation rooms, wherein there was little decoration or light, save the fluorescent lamps overhead that doused everything in a harsh glow. The metal tables and chairs were just comfy enough to withstand extended periods of sitting, but it wasn't a desirable option and the team did their best to avoid it.

"We're looking at a lot of noise with some useful information wedged in between," Spencer replied, wiping his face with both hands as he stared dolefully at the CD player; "It's hard to listen to."

The other agent nodded. Were he in Spencer's position, he didn't know how he would cope. Even though they were certain her terror was an act, if not greatly exaggerated, it was difficult to hear it and know they couldn't comfort her.

"The profile's live. We're getting a few people calling in, but, well, you know – mostly goose chases."

"If there was a better system, we'd use it. Not everyone's a profiler. It'd help if they all were; but no, instead, they choose to moan about Starbucks and consumerism." He shook his head, either in exasperation or pity, and went on; "I've analysed some of it. It sounds like she's trying to say 'big men.'"

Derek cocked his head to the side, the tip of his right ear pointed at the CD player; "Could be talking about guards. What kind of group would have guards?"

"They might be working in a social hierarchy. An alpha male and a group of betas or omegas."

"That's a precarious balance," Derek pointed out; "It only works if no one else wants to climb the ladder."

"They're probably more concentrated on getting us put in prison."

"Come on, Reid; you're too smart to believe that."

He looked down at his notes, scribbled as they were, and sighed.

"I'm too depressed to be smart," he said; "We're here and she's there, and this is the slowest progress we've ever made on a case. How long until we're pulled off of it? Til they decide we're better used somewhere else, and declare them all dead or divert funding?"

"Reid, remember; we're not letting ourselves think like that. That's the first sign we're losing the fight." Derek would shake him out of it if he could; "The alpha male would be completely safe, if and only if he has no rivals in the group. And I doubt, in a group apparently assembled for this one cause, out of the siblings of deranged serial killers, that there's not going to be one alpha male there who realises he's at the bottom of the pack."

Alaric had her own room.

It was small, not fit for purpose, with one corner made green with mildew and the others either damp or decorated with cobwebs. On the floor there laid an old mattress, where springs were jutting out of the fabric, sharpened and glinting, and beside that was a small, sad-looking basket in which she was meant to put her dirty clothes.

"Who washes them?" she asked David, who had shown her the room. The basket's edges sagged, like a spinster watching a happy couple wandering the riverside; "It's not a case of someone I don't know touching my clothes, is it?"

"Of course not. Rita deals with the washing. We have this little laundrette not far from here – two lovely ladies look after it, apparently, and Rita's better at making conversation than we are."

Alaric raised an eyebrow. She found it hard to believe that Rita, with her beady eyes and hard voice, would be any better dealing with people than David, even though his charm was paper thin and reliant on mood.

"Don't look at me like that. I can't deal with people in the laundrette half as well as I deal with people like you. See, Alaric," he kneeled down to smile at her; "You're special. You're smart. You and me could destroy those people out there, and all we'd need to do it is the brain between us."

"You and I," she corrected. It was yet another hint that she was not so much his minion as she was his ruler. If he were half as intelligent as he thought himself to be, Alaric knew she would be dead.

"Hm? Oh, yes. You and I. But don't you see, Alaric? There's a place out there for us, and it's right at the top of the food chain."

"I thought you were only doing this to get revenge?"

David laughed; "The best plans always evolve, over time. Of course, my first priority is to get those bastard BAU members into prison. Then, I'm going to take those people there – our hostages – and I'm going to execute them all."

Alaric let in a little out a sharp exhale, but thankfully, David was too caught up in his own excitement to notice.

"And then we're going to turn out sights higher. Whoever's in our way, we can get rid of them just by putting our two heads together."

"Wouldn't it just be easier with a gun?" she asked. It was a question that made David's eyes light up, and it was then that Alaric knew he was more bloodthirsty than first she thought.

"Of course it would. But that's why I need you. How can we make using a gun creative and fun? That's what I want to know."

He went back to the door.

"There are some clothes under the mattress. Get yourself changed. We've got a lot of planning ahead of us."

And as the door shut behind him, Alaric felt that familiar sinking feeling in her gut.


	23. Fear

And so, time went on.

Reports came in and people became suspects. There was a multitude of things to do, interrogations to be held, and though each one got them a little further, got them new names and dates and details, still the team felt as if they were fighting an impossible war.

Spencer filled up his coffee cup and held the newest set of files, for once optimistic about the outcome of their work. That he had translated at least some of the Morse code had comforted him; Alaric was safe, and as a sharp-witted girl had devised a plan to ensure she stayed so.

Alaric herself was busy learning how her new habitat was laid out. She wasn't trusted enough yet to have been told where the front door was. It stood to reason that she, the girl who had already 'switched sides' once, would do so again when she was reunited with her carers. What she saw was a steady stream of people go off in all different directions, and occasionally they would return with food and supplies, and sometimes even books she hadn't yet read.

She kept her thoughts to herself, unless she could twist them to manipulate someone to do something for her. It was easy enough. Most of the people there were die-hard loyalists to their families – what they saw in her was probably an extension of that, working on the deep-seated need for her to be protected and loved, because for the 'betas' they felt that she was part of their Pseudo-family.

And then, there was Angelo.

Angelo was a large man; broad, ex-convict who at some point had beaten up his little sister's boyfriend, though with good reason. From what Alaric had learned, he was in the group so as to avenge the arrest of his elder brother, with whom he felt a personal connection with. A dragon tattoo ran up from his shoulder to his ear, his head shaved so that the ink could be seen, and the detail snout that breathed black fire expanded over his eye. It looked a painful piece to have. It was one of the many threatening things about him, save for his ignorance and his temper.

He was an alpha male who unlike David wanted to shed blood and spread violence.

"Where's Dave?" he asked one afternoon – perhaps, since Alaric didn't know – as he came into the 'kitchen' area. She was sitting on the counter, a book up on her legs, and listened to the only other two people answer him; a woman who called herself Renee, and a man called Hannibal.

"He went out to go and get more books," Renee said, swishing brown hair from her face as she gargled tar-like coffee; "He said he'll be back soon."

"Will he now?" Angelo put his gun on the table, away from Alaric, she noticed; "Because he told me he was going to send Olly on that job so he'd be on hand for these hostage interrogations. Shame the man can't stick to his promises, hm?"

Hannibal rolled his shoulders. As an older man at fifty, he was loath to get involved in arguments with a much younger, stronger opponent, but he was also a man of some integrity. It was why he was fighting to see the BAU imprisoned. He wanted his sister to know her captors, right or wrong, were suffering the same humiliation she was.

"Angelo, you know we're not supposed to talk about David-"

"What, in front of the kid?" he gestured to Alaric; "What the damn Hell do I care? She's one of the hostages. I don't care if she's been upgraded to one of us – to me, she'll always be a hostage, and it's hard enough keeping them fed and quiet. We're on an empty warehouse lot, for God's sake! People come here all the time."

Alaric's pause was momentary. She acted as though she hadn't heard, engrossed in her imaginary world, while beside her Hannibal and Renee did their best to shut Angelo up.

"We're not supposed to talk about where we are!" Renee hissed; "Don't you want this to go well, Angelo?!"

Where they were sitting, on an old table set with rickety chairs, they were bathed in the sickly, dirty glow of the light above, not quite as bright as the one in the interrogation room, and it made the scene even more pathetic. Grown adults trying to hush one another like children. It made her want to laugh.

Then she remembered where she was, and went back to listening.

"If she's really one of us, we shouldn't be worried about talking about the place around us. What – do you think she's telling 'em anything? Those BAU are as clueless as the mongrels we've got here. What I want to know is how we're going to keep this up if we can't trust one of our 'team mates.'"

Hannibal glanced at Renee, rubbing his balding head with a furrowed brow; "He's right, you know."

"Maybe. But David is smarter than all of us. He's got a plan. He and Rita know what the girl's going to do, and we don't."

"Yeah, and why don't we? Thought we were all supposed to be one big team in this. David's 'big happy family.' We're not working with him so much as for him."

Renee shook her head; "Take that up with him. We just want to sit down and wait."

"Waiting's not going to do much good. I thought we were going to get those BAU bastards arrested, but apparently the plan's changed. I don't know when it changed; it just did. Isn't that great?"

Angelo turned and headed towards the door. Before he vanished, he stopped, looked back at Alaric and said, in a threateningly low voice;

"If you think you're safe here, kid, you've got another thing coming. We all know who you are. The moment big Dave isn't protecting you anymore, consider yourself just another target."

With that, he was gone. Alaric spent a while staring at him, and then, with her own dismissive tone, said to her companions; "Lovely chap, isn't he?"

"Spencer!"

The man turned from sipping his drink, only to be confronted with the brightly dressed Penelope, her blonde hair tied with a bright pink band and an even brighter headband on, which almost stole his attention from her frantic expression.

"What is it?!" he asked.

"Come on – there's someone here, claiming to know someone who matches the profile."

He stood, weary, hands rested against his desk as he turned towards Garcia; "That doesn't surprise me. A lot of people think they know who they are. Doesn't mean they're always right."

She took his hand and led him to the room where they were being kept, all the while speaking at such a speed it was hard to hear her.

"Spencer…this could be it. This could be the person who helps us solve the whole thing," she said when they reached the door, itself big and black to impose, and beside it, Derek Morgan, who was busy arranging his outfit to seem more genial and less threatening.

"It could," Derek said.

With a deep breath, Reid replied; "I'll treat it with the same diligence I would any other interrogation. I'm optimistic about today. But that only goes so far."

"Well," Morgan patted his head with a smile; "Let's hope it goes far enough, Slim."


	24. Hopeful Hearts

Spencer deduced the woman to be an honest sort.

She showed no signs of lying, and when speaking, she looked directly at them, with no twitching or nervousness in her voice. There was a cold, mechanical feel to how she spoke. It meant that she perhaps had no ability to emotionally connect with something, or that the situation was one she had no love for.

"You're Derek Morgan," she stated when she caught sight of the man, who beside Spencer had asked a majority of their questions; "You arrested my brother a while back."

His eyebrow rose; "I'm sorry to hear that."

"I'm not. He was a psychopath. Eight girls dead, and he was put away for it. The only problem I had was the fact he was my brother."

"You use past tense," Spencer noted. Around them were the monotonous grey walls of the interrogation room, and though he had been in them many times before, with a stream of different faces, he suddenly felt claustrophobic – a feeling which he supressed.

She raised her eyebrow at him. A pretty woman. Her eyebrows were plucked and shaped, her eyes an intense blue, like deep water, and her lips were full, pink, the sort that moved with every expression she made. He imagined they hid a set of straight white teeth behind them.

"Yes?" she said; "What about it?"

"Well, it implies that you no longer see him as your brother anymore," he explained, and when she gave him a nod, went further; "When we detach from something or lose someone, we often switch to past tense without thought; something our subconscious does to help us heal and not dwell on it, which has limited and varied success. Did your brother die, Miss Hall, or have you disowned him?"

Derek glanced at his counterpart, but decided not to say anything. Perhaps tact was a luxury they couldn't afford. While he was trained in knowing when those situations arose, Morgan felt he couldn't say whether or not he agreed with Spencer's methods – mainly because he too wanted to bypass regulation and get to the point.

"I've disowned him," she said; "There's only so much I can stand from my brothers, and killing girls isn't on that list. Those were innocent people. They could have been me. And I'm supposed to join that stupid little gang to avenge someone who put himself in jail?" she gave a snort at her own words.

There was a pause as both Reid and Morgan processed what she had said. To not look to eager, both kept emotion from their face. If it showed, it was only subtle, in the lines of weary features and sunken eyes.

"You were invited to join a gang?" Derek asked. On the metal table there was placed a small file, but most of it was irrelevant to their discussion. There was no chance Jeanette, as she called herself, knew half of the facts they had drawn from the case, and if she did she was under intense suspicion.

"My sister was contacted by someone who said he had our exact problem. Called himself David. She told me that he was fighting to get proper revenge for our family."

"Did she feel affronted by your brother's conviction?" Spencer asked.

"Are you kidding?" Jeanette replied; "She was livid. She and the rest of my family. You've got to understand – there are nine children in our family. I have one hundred and fifty two cousins. We're close, and none of us wanted it to be true. Only some of us were able to accept the verdict and move on."

Spencer took the pen he had tucked away in his pocket; "Which sister left, Miss Hall?"

"Louisa. She was running a group on a social networking site for Kurt's release, and then…then she got a message from this David guy. He's smooth. She said he knows what he's doing. But I thought he didn't know half of what he was saying."

"Why is that?" Derek asked. A small bloom of hope was blossoming in his chest. If there was a chance Jeanette could somehow contact her sister, or had some vague idea where her sister was, there was a chance they could follow that lead and find their missing loved ones.

Jeanette rolled her shoulders back. Her brown hair fell over her shoulders like a waterfall, one that vanished into nothingness, and she brushed it out of her eyes as though trying to gather herself.

"All he wants is for the BAU to suffer. He doesn't say anything about getting people released, or even helping to prove that they aren't criminals. He said that there's nothing left now but to ruin everything you love." She gave a heavy sigh; "I tried to talk her out of it. I told her there's no point ruining someone else's family just because we lost one of our own. She seemed to agree with me, at first."

"Then what happened?"

"Well, one day I went to her apartment, went in, and she wasn't there. Just some note on the table saying she wasn't coming back until Kurt was out."

Spencer jotted it down as fast as he could, though he needn't have. He didn't think either he or Derek would forget that conversation for the rest of their lives. Alaric depended on it.

"Do you have any idea where your sister might be?"

"No. But I can give you a picture," she rummaged in her handbag, a pretty faux leather thing, and pulled out a recent photograph of nine grown people, each of them smiling and with their arms around each other in what looked to be a fairly decent home. "There. That's her."

Derek took the photograph and studied it. As he did so, he caught the fact of someone he recognised – Kurt Hall, or a serial killer that had once almost made him quit his job.

"Do you mind if we keep this?" he asked, though the thought of having Kurt in his pocket wasn't something he enjoyed.

She shrugged; "Have it. Doesn't matter to me anymore. My family was ruined the moment Kurt went to prison."

They thanked her and stood, promising that soon someone would come along to do a set of routine questions, and then she could leave. They also promised to notify her if any news of her sister came up; something that she laughed at, but didn't rebuke.

Once outside the interrogation room, they passed what they knew onto Hotch. He took them without question. He knew better than to speak to them after an interrogation like the one they had just had.

"This could be it," Spencer said; "I had a good feeling about today."

"I thought you didn't believe in that kind of stuff?"

"Some people argue that a positive outlook can lead to positive outcomes-"

"Let's not get into another discussion like that, shall we?" he laughed and they proceeded down the hall, intent to return to the bullpen and go about finding where Louisa had vanished to; "This is great. We might get Alaric back soon."

Spencer crossed his fingers with a glint in his eye, for that too was a symbol he didn't enjoy; "Here's hoping."


	25. Coasting

Angelo proved to be a constant nuisance to a plan still in its tentative stages.

He made it clear to Alaric that he didn't think she was one of them, and even if she proved to be an asset, he wouldn't hesitate to put a bullet between her eyes. The way he spoke to her – constantly furious, with veins protruding from his neck that she thought might rupture – made her nervous he would do it anyway.

David held him back, for the time being. The man had a way with words that could even get through to a brute like Angelo. Whenever he was on a rampage, it was David who smoothed things over, David who calmed his nerves, though oftentimes it was David that Angelo had a problem with.

"Where's Rita?" he asked one day, when both Alaric and Angelo were in the kitchen, alone if not for the little static-filled television the man had for some reason left on.

Angelo shrugged; "Don't know."

"I think she went to the laundrette," Alaric said, her voice even despite her not wanting to be there, in the presence of the bad tempered one; "She was talking about it earlier."

"Really? She went a few days ago. How much washing do we get through?"

"After Will's…" she trailed off, wanting not to remember the savage beating he'd gone through, much less that she could do nothing to stop it; "Will's beating, she decided she didn't want the bloody clothes laying around. She's taken them to wash."

Angelo peered at her, narrowing his eyes; "Don't call them by their real names. They're nothing but dogs. Hostages. We don't even have to feed 'em – we do it out of the goodness of our hearts."

Alaric said nothing. She had learned long ago that Angelo's taunts were not to be raised to. He would attack her, with or without her provoking him, and even if she knew that was an inevitability she would do what she could to put it off.

David looked at her; "Well, if you see Rita, tell her I need to talk to her."

"That's another thing," the other man cut in before his rival could disappear; "Why are you always discussing things with Rita first? Why not us? We're all supposed to be one team here. Seems like you're not being the leader you promised us you'd be."

"Rita's the first one who I brought into this team. She's the one who, in all senses of the word, helped me to build it up. Of course I'm going to run things by her. It's only fair."

"Fair isn't why we're all here, is it?"

Alaric felt the need to draw herself in, though perhaps because it was a debate and Spencer had conditioned her to join in them; "If you want to be part of a better team than the BAU, things have to work in a similar social hierarchy, but with adjustments. No bigger syndicate dictates what you do. There are leaders, but they don't have the overall say; they come up with the rules and you all agree to them, or disagree with them. Then they get reworked. Isn't that democracy?"

He glared at her. In the back of her mind, Alaric fancied he was plotting of all the different ways he could kill her, and whether or not he could make it look like an accident afterwards.

Spencer had studied the map for as long as he was able. The lines and borders now burned in his memory, like so many different rivers connecting in his favourite artworks, or the strings of a puppet suspended over a high drop.

It was a theory Garcia had come up with. The group had to be working in a warehouse. It was one of those things; David, who presented himself to be educated, would have wanted for them to be in a 'secure' location, when in true fact he had just found an abandoned place and called it his own. One that was out of the way, and that no one would go into. A place so dark and mysterious that it warranted ghost stories and scared children.

A warehouse would be the perfect location to take hostages, especially if part of it ran underground.

There were multiple warehouses in the area, not least those that were abandoned. Empty fish storages. Old Amazon granaries. Museums that had been lost to the burden of civilian disinterest and closed their doors. Offices that suffered in stock market crashes. Vacant libraries which were now downgraded to warehouse status. They were all there, and now, in one of them, somewhere in the country, his Alaric was being held hostage.

Was it one they had unknowingly passed once in their lifetime? Was it one of those places that seemed insignificant at first, only to play a huge part in later life? How he wished he could see into the future. Then, he mused, he would be prepared for anything that might happen.

"We've got permission to raid any of the warehouses not currently owned by anyone," Derek informed him. He appeared from the small door at the side, which was shut, and the windows had the blinds shut so Reid could better focus. If not for the single window facing outwards to the world, he wouldn't have been able to scour the map.

"How many is that?" he asked.

"Hundreds," he admitted; "With most going outside the border. Not far, but enough to make the trip hard."

Derek's face was gloomy and tired. Once strong features seemed to have sunken, his lips worried, and when he looked at Spencer the genius saw there was none of that usual fire in his eyes. Where Reid had hope, it seemed Morgan had lost it. There was only so long that a man could hold out against his own sadness.

"But at least we're getting somewhere," he reasoned; "We've narrowed it down."

Derek sighed; "Yeah. I'm just…scared we're too late."

Alaric's nervousness proved to be justified. She had left the kitchen and gone to her room, only to hear outside of it two other team members mumbling to each other, words hushed and surreptitious.

"Angelo's about to snap."

"We've got to get out of here before he does."

"Are you crazy? I want to be here for this."

"Why the Hell would you want that?"

"I don't know. I just do. Hey, he said he wants to make an example of David. And he said he's going to get rid of that Alaric kid to do it."

"Her? Really? She's-"

"Says she's the enemy. And I don't blame him for thinking so. We've got a BAU kid in the middle of our team; who's to say she won't turn?"

Alaric trembled as she fingered her thin mattress. If she didn't get out soon, she feared her life was at stake.


	26. Recorded

Developments were few, and to Alaric, they were none.

The primary objective – capture, and threats – had been completed. With it now gone, it seemed that the next phase of the plan had been little thought out, and though David assured her all was well, it didn't take a genius to see the tension that was rising through the lower ranks.

It was the video talk that first caught her attention.

She sat, enthralled in the pages of a dirty, worn book, when outside of the kitchen she heard a voice speak. They sounded fairly generic to her; perhaps Leslie, or her cohort, Jean. It was too feminine to belong to Rita, and too masculine to belong to Renee, who though with a face of austerity seemed to have the voice of an angel.

"The videos," she was muttering; "They're sending more out. More videos for the BAU. What's the point of it all? They already know we have them."

Jean hummed; "Might beat that William and Jessica up and send them a copy. Miss Jareau and Hotchner won't be too happy if they see their precious babysitters like that."

"Husband, Jean; William is Jareau's husband."

"Does it make a difference?"

"Why not the children? We've had them for so long now, and we haven't done anything with them."

"It's about the message. They can't take the injuries the older ones can. If we kill one of them, we go down for the same sentence our brothers did, and then where would we be?"

There was a moment of silence. If it weren't for the fact she hadn't heard footsteps, Alaric might have been inclined to think they walked away. Then Jean began to speak again:

"The videos are definitely being sent to show him getting beaten up. Question is, what's that going to do? No one's listened to our demand in the first place. The team isn't locked up, no one's done so much as questioned David about it, and now we've got that kid on our side? The Morgan girl? I thought she was the one we were going to kill if things got tough."

"David said she's too important to kill. Angelo disagrees."

There was a laugh, which bordered on a snort; "Of course he does. I'm getting tired of the testosterone match between those two. Who cares who's running things? We seem to be at a dead end, and I don't like it."

"Well, if it comes to a fight, I'm on Angelo's side. He's terrifying. I think he can get us moving again."

She heard footsteps; "Well, if you like raging psychopaths who'd gladly kill us all, go ahead!"

Spencer was tired. Tired of monotonous trees, varied landscape, forests and nature paths. He was tired of the empty car parks that led up to a derelict building, and the cockroaches they found within. He was tired of opening door after door to find nothing, returning home with a cloud hanging over their head, and having no idea when they might hear that they were too late all along.

His optimism hadn't lasted long. Derek was back to smiling for him. Where he mumbled his words and had deep, sunken eyes, Morgan kept himself somewhat refreshed, speaking in the same firm voice he would if he were investigating the death of some unknown prostitute, or the slaughter of hate mongers.

"I have a good feeling about this one," he said to his friend as they rumbled along the road, itself having fallen into disrepair, the trees a green and brown whirl beside them; "I think we might find them here."

Spencer murmured; "That's what you said about the last one."

He was sunken into his leather chair, weary and dejected, wanting only to sleep but not finding the peace to do so. Very few people had been helpful with their investigation. Those who reported sightings were either mistaken or wasting time, and those that were useful were few and far between. A laundrette lady mentioned she had been seeing a woman who fit one of the profiles in her shop, but that the same woman had vanished without a trace. The CCTV footage handed over to them was too pixelated to make sense of it, but all the same, they sent it out to the public, hoping some miracle might occur and they would hear from a friend, relative, or innocent bystander.

"Hey," Derek reached out and patted his shoulder; "Things are looking up, alright? It's going to get better soon. I can feel it."

Reid gave a weak nod; "I know. I just wish I could, too."

Alaric took the video camera when they were done with it. No one would miss it. David and Rita were too busy ordering their minions about, sending the beaten and bloody Will to that small room, and generally making noise. It made her irrationally angry that they seemed never to change their tune. It was the same barks and commands; for her, if she were part of their team and not a dissident, she felt she would become so annoyed with the routine that she too would rebel and fight for Angelo to become their leader.

It was set up in the corner of her room. There, it began to record. She fancied it would see the important parts; the bareness of her furniture; the lack of home comforts; the mattress, now riddled with rags and torn sheets; and her cover, behind which she would change, lest David walk in and scare her with his 'intelligent' plans.

Alaric took a deep breath, and hit record.

"My name is Alaric Morgan," she began; "I was kidnapped…I don't even remember how long ago. Since then, I'm the only one to so far gain the trust of my captor. A man named David has taken me as his protégé. I believe he thinks I can help him in his plots. But we're in severe danger here."

And so, she told them everything she knew. She described to them the people she had seen, and then what their roles were in the group dynamic. When it came to Angelo, she took a great deal of time to describe him.

"Please," she ended; "We're not safe. There's uprising in the lower ranks. Angelo wants to take David's place and he's planning to kill me to do it. I don't have a lot of time. I doubt any of us do. Please, please – you have to hurry!"

As she reached to turn off the record, she mentioned; "Uncle Spencer, Uncle Derek? I love you."

Once it was off, she checked to be sure the tape had recorded over the beating of William, and hurried to put it back in place. It was her one shot at saving herself and the others. They were going to be killed otherwise.

She only prayed she wasn't too late.


	27. Discovered

Time passed. All was well within the group, if a little strained due to the tension between David and Angelo. Around the third day, Alaric breathed a sigh of relief; she was safe from the wrath of whoever might have discovered her little plot.

At the station, once more, Spencer was sipping at coffee, flicking through papers read a hundred times, files memorised and ordered. Derek, he assumed, had gone out to follow the latest lead, but he knew in his heart that the man would return fruitless, as every lead they had led to a dead end.

David may not have thought his plan through, but he had certainly put things in place to keep them off guard.

"Reid, look alive!"

He looked up to see Morgan enter, lively despite their situation. A small flutter of hope dared dance in his chest – was it possible he had found something? A clue? Alaric? The others?

But no one followed him into the building. His team seemed to disperse as if they were seeds, carried away by a non-existent wind. Spencer wondered how it was they could be so relaxed; months had passed, cases were being ignored, and soon he feared they would be pulled off their investigation and given bereavement leave, or something to that effect.

"What is it?" he asked when Morgan drew near; "Found anything?"

He shook his head; "No. Well, nothing that tells us where Alaric is. But look."

Derek went into his pocket and produced a small video. It was a strange one, with a label that read a simple date, and the casing was orange instead of black. Spencer couldn't recall ever seeing one like it.

"Another video? What's on it?" he sighed; "Good news or bad?"

"I have no idea. And there's no way to find out until we've watched it."

The genius leaned towards his phone, left lying on a stack of files he had prepared some hours before; "Shall I call Hotch and JJ?"

"Please."

It took less than a few minutes for the others to be alerted, and when they were, even less time to appear. Gathering in a small evidence room – small because there was hardly any evidence to speak of, rather than a lack of space elsewhere – Spencer and Morgan lingered at the door, arms folded, while Hotch sat nearer to the television, JJ beside him.

There was a hush in the room. The blinds were drawn so only the smallest amount of light filtered through, casting dense shadows where furniture stood, and sapping what little hope there was left in the four gathered hearts. The television, which was a simple block one so as to save on their budget, had an attached VCR player to watch any evidence tapes, or to look over recordings of old interrogations before the team had switched over to CDs and digital.

Silence continued, until finally, with a heavy sigh in his voice, Hotch commanded:

"Play it."

The video was put in.

A screen of static soon faded to images, and while for a moment it looked as though someone was receiving a beating, the audio and visual changed to something else. Spencer's eyes squinted to make sense of it all, before he realised what they were looking at.

"Oh my God…" he muttered, loud in a room that had before been so silent; "That's Alaric!"

"I was kidnapped…I don't even remember how long ago. Since then, I'm the only one to so far gain the trust of my captor. A man named David has taken me as his protégé. I believe he thinks I can help him in his plots. But we're in severe danger here."

Derek was silent. His eyes were intense with fury and loss, and for one mad moment he fancied he was looking at the girl's final thoughts; that sometime before this was sent to them, she was killed, and what they were searching for now were four people and a body.

"We're in an abandoned warehouse – I don't know where exactly we are, but it's somewhere close to a town. Rita, one of the leading members, goes to a laundrette every few days," Alaric looked tired. Her eyes, often so bright and curious, were dull, made to look as if every ounce of energy had been sapped from her. As she described Rita and David, her hair fell lank and lifeless, her face a heavy frown that seemed to mock her normal look.

"Oh, God," he sighed; "Baby girl, what're they doing to you?"

"Then, there's Angelo," she took a deep breath; "Be careful with him. He's got a shaved head and a unique tattoo: It goes from his neck to span out over his eye. He's an alpha male – at least, I think so. He's challenging David's position as group leader and, though David isn't a peach himself, I'd rather he was top dog than Angelo. The man's a whole bag of nuts."

Despite themselves, the members smiled. So long had it been since they heard something even close to a joke, they found it amusing to listen to her.

She went on. And on, and on. Had she described him in any further detail, Derek feared he may have appeared on screen, brought to life by her very fear of him or the mention of his name too many times.

"Please. We're not safe. There's uprising in the lower ranks. Angelo wants to take David's place and he's planning to kill me to do it. I don't have a lot of time. I doubt any of us do. Please, please – you have to hurry!"

With that, the video ended. For a moment, there was a stunned sort of stillness, and then:

"We have to find her. Now."

Hotchner was up on his feet, phone appearing at his ear; "Call Garcia and tell her to cancel every search to warehouses that aren't at least ten miles in sight of a town. Have every available man search what's left. And get that tape to an artist! Let them draw the suspects out. Go!"


End file.
